kale's Unite the Righteous Virtues: The Koumi Saga
by Eowyn the Fair
Summary: Book 4: Two megalomaniacal allies of awesome power join forces to hunt down and trap the chosen to harness the power of their very souls. And a chance encounter by Yamato will have a heartwrenching impact on the rest of his life...
1. In the Heart of Rio

****

Note: Again, yes, I do have kale's permission to post his stories here. That permission is documented in his author's profile. This is the fourth book, continuing the saga begun in 'SoulBound', 'A Bond Unbreakable', and 'The True Believers' and occurs the winter before the beginning of canon season 02.

Reading of Book 2, at least, is recommended to follow the storyline.

Though this is the Koumi saga, the events in the prologue deal with neither Koushiro nor Mimi.

Book Four -- Unite the Righteous Virtues: The Koumi Saga

Matt Ishida strolled silently into the park near his father's apartment, his hands jammed into his pockets and his head bowed against the frigid wind. The day itself had not been too awfully cold, at least as far as winter days went, but as night approached the temperature was dropping rapidly.

The blond-haired boy, however, hardly seemed to notice. In his mind he was going over the hesitant admission that Sora had just made to him, the confession that crushed his heart just at the point when he thought that she had chosen him over Tai.

__

Matt… It's not that I don't have feelings for you, because I do. Very deep feelings. It's just that… well, you're really more like a brother to me. I do love you, but it's not like the love that a girl has for a boy… not like the love that I have for Tai…

That had stung him momentarily. He had pushed Sora to choose between the two of them just as much as the others had, yet now that she _had _finally chosen, he wished that it had never happened. Better to live with the hope of success than the certain knowledge of failure.

But, try as he might, Matt could not be bitter. Tai and Sora were two of his closest friends, and if he looked at the situation from the perspective of a truly neutral observer, he realized that the two would make an excellent match. In all honesty, the boy would need Sora to keep him from… well, to keep him from being Tai too often.

So now, all Matt really wanted was some time to himself. Not necessarily to brood, he wasn't nearly as standoffish as he had once been, after all, but just some time to think. And on a day as cold as this one and at this time of day, the park was likely just the place to find some solitude.

The boy frowned as he stepped through the trees and into the verdant grass of the park. Someone was already there, sitting on one of the benches with their knees pulled up to their chest and their face buried in their arms. Well, it was a big park, so it would be easy to avoid the individual, he reasoned, and started off for the benches on the other side of the small lake in the center of the parkland.

Then the wind carried the sound of a sob to his ears. Matt glanced once again at the despondent figure. _Yeah, buddy. Life's tough all around._

Matt sat down on a bench of his own over on the opposite end of the park. It seemed that all of his friends were pairing off into romantic couples. Tai and Sora would be the second, after his own little brother and Kari. And Mimi and Izzy… well, though they both denied it, he was beginning to suspect that there might be something to those two as well. Was it all that they'd gone through that somehow pulled them together in that manner? And worse, did that mean that he'd end up paired with Joe?

Matt leaned back onto the bench, stretching his arms over his head and staring back at the moon that was looming overhead, peering down at him. _What?_ he almost demanded of it.

The blond-haired boy craned his head as he watched the figure on the other side of the park suddenly perk up and rise to their feet. _Good, _Matt thought, _finally some solitude._

Though it was hard to tell at that great distance, Matt got the distinct impression that his woeful companion was female. Something about the steps that the other took as she walked down to the shore of the lake were much too delicate to have been made by a boy. The figure, who was dressed in a thin jacket and a pair of ratty jeans stopped at the edge of the lake, and again the wind carried the sound of crying to Matt's ears. _Definitely a girl._

Then, hesitantly, the figure on the other side started to walk from the shore of the lake into the water. Matt frowned. It was awfully cold to go swimming, particularly since the other was fully dressed…

"Hey!" the boy shouted, sitting up and calling across the water to the other. "What do you think you're doing?"

The other did not so much as hesitate at his voice, and instead continued on a slow and deliberate march into the cold waters.

Matt leapt to his feet and dashed along the shoreline of the lake towards the girl, kicking off his shoes as he neared the far side. As he reached the spot where she had entered at, the dark figure plunged forward into the icy water and bubbles broke to the surface as she purposefully exhaled her breath. "Stop!" shouted Matt as he splashed clumsily towards the girl.

The blond-haired boy finally reached the area where she had gone down and started fumbling about beneath the water for her. After several seconds of frantic searching the boy's hand hit something solid, and he grabbed a tight hold on it and yanked it towards the surface. After a moment the girl's head broke the water, sputtering. "What are you doing?" she demanded, slapping furiously at the boy. "Let me go!"

Matt glared at the willow-thin girl, long, wet tendrils of dark hair obscuring her face. "What am _I_ doing?" he rejoined, reversing his grip on the girl and trudging back towards the shore, pulling the other alongside him. "What are _you _doing?"

"None… of… your… business!" the other protested, struggling with the stronger boy in a desperate attempt to make her way back into the deeper water.

Matt wrapped his arms around the girl from behind and lugged her backwards. He found his hands joined fairly close to… well, to somewhere where they probably shouldn't be on someone that he'd just met, but at that moment his sole cogent thought was to get the maniacal, suicidal girl away from the water.

Finally, exhausted, the blond boy managed to drag the other to shore. He was somewhat surprised at the strength of the willowy female. He hadn't been expecting her to put up such a good fight in her attempt to…

"Why don't you just go away?" the girl sobbed angrily, falling to her knees and facing away from her rescuer. "Why won't you just mind your own business?"

Matt was breathing heavily, the cold of the night air beginning to sting his lungs. "You're welcome," he retorted, careful to keep his body between her and the water in case she should try to go back in.

The dark-haired girl checked another heated response, her teeth chattering together briskly. _Wait… that voice, _she thought, glancing surreptitiously over her shoulder. _It can't be…_

Matt looked over at the girl as she quickly turned her head back around. "Hey," he said, walking over to her side and draping an arm over her thin shoulders. "Whatever it is, it can't be that bad."

"Don't touch me! Get back!" the girl shouted, shrugging his arm off of her.

Matt stepped back, a frown on his face. "Okay... Okay, fine. I won't touch. I'll just stay back here, I guess. But I'm not going away until you calm down. Or maybe I should just drag you to the police and let _them_ keep you from killing yourself."

"No," the girl said in a barely audible whisper, curling up on the ground. "No, please… not the police. I'm… I'm sorry I yelled at you. I just don't like anybody touching me… back there…"

Matt frowned, then his eyes caught a glimpse of something. The girl's thin jacket had slipped off of one of her shoulders and revealed her bare skin. And something else…

"What the hell?" Matt murmured, then looked closer at the mark on the girl's back. His frown deepened. "Take off your coat," he said seriously.

The girl was prepared to snap back at the boy, to tell him once again to mind his own business, but she was used to obeying the orders of boys who could give them with authority. Also, though she was loathe to admit it, there was something that attracted her to someone that finally seemed to care. And so she bit her tongue and sat up, letting the oversized jacket slip from her shoulders.

Matt was horrified at what he saw as the girl shed her coat. The pale flesh of her slender back was literally covered with almost innumerable scars, most of them looking as though they had been cut and healed over long ago. The blond boy almost winced at the sight before his teeth clamped together in rage; his eyes dark. "Did your parents do this to you?" he demanded of her.

The girl exhaled once, then shook her head sadly, still careful to keep her face hidden from the boy. If he discovered her identity then she doubted that his amicable manner would last. It could well be that she would suffer a beating at his hands as well. "No. No, I haven't seen my parents in years. Whatever you see there was caused by my brother."

Matt stiffened, the response shocking him into a momentary silence. The hint, the very idea of one sibling doing something like this to another… the boy thought of his own little brother, who he loved more than anything on earth… it was unimaginable to him. With a profound sadness in his eyes he moved closer to the girl and placed his arm gently around her shoulders, careful not to place any pressure on them.

The girl blinked once, startled at his touch, then closed her eyes as the boy's strong arm enfolded her. With a tenderness that she'd never experienced before he pulled her against his chest, and despite the chill of the cold she felt warm all over. _Oh, God… I can't let this happen. Not with him, of all people. I've got to tell him to go… to push him away… _"Matt... please stop," she murmured in her surreal state. But then the girl froze, alarmed, as she heard the words leave her lips. _Oh no..._

"Huh?" The boy stopped and removed his arm from her shoulders, trying to glance around to see the girl's face. "How did you know my… have we met?"

The other turned her face to the side, bringing her hands up as well. "Go away."

Now Matt was becoming angry. Something about this was all wrong, and the boy didn't like feeling confused or deceived. "Who are you?"

"Please," she whispered. "Thank you for what you've done. I don't know of a proper way to thank you, but you have to leave. I… I don't want you to hate me."

Matt's brow furrowed. "Hate you? For having been beaten? For trying to kill yourself? I feel sorry for you, and I want to help. More than anything, I want to help you." He paused, the truth of that statement just then occurring to him. His own sorrow at being rejected by Sora had been all but forgotten in his concern for this sad, slender girl with the musical voice. He gently turned the girl's shoulders until they were facing one another, both on their knees by the sandy shore. Matt placed a finger on the girl's chin and lifted her face that he might know her.

Matt's jaw dropped as he looked into the girl's eyes. "Oh… my…"

The girl broke down instantly, her hands going to her dark eyes. "I asked you… I _begged _you not to do that," she cried fitfully, her words trailing off into incoherent weeping. Matt moved to his feet while staring coldly down at her, brushing the dirt from his knees. "Rio Kuroda," he muttered in disgust.

"Now will you please go away?" she demanded tearfully, shrinking beneath his icy glare. The warmth of his presence was now gone, and her teeth began chattering anew.

"Gladly," Matt replied, seething in disgust and turning his back on the other as he took a few, quick steps in the opposite direction. To think that he had almost started to feel some affection for _that _girl… Her, the one who but for a remarkable twist of fate would have killed his little brother months before. He felt almost dirty. Was this somebody's sick idea of a joke?

Then he stopped, hearing the dark-haired girl still weeping feverishly at his back. He was certain that he didn't _want _to stop, but something coerced him into it. Was the sudden, guilty feeling truly because he had started to feel something for her, however brief? Or was it perhaps because he was walking away from someone who was in evident trouble and who clearly needed him?

The boy frowned. In his heart he knew the right thing to do, he just wasn't sure at that moment that he wanted to do it. _She tried to kill T.K., and almost succeeded. _But then another voice interposed itself over his own thoughts. It was as if his little brother was there and speaking to him as well. _Matt, whatever she did in the past, she needs help now. And you're the only one there for her. Don't let her die because of me. Please, Matt. I couldn't live with that._

Matt snapped out of his reverie. The voice had been so eerily like T.K. that he was forced to fight the impulse to turn around and look for his little brother. Slowly, uncertainly, the tall boy walked back to where Rio still knelt in the sand. "Come on, get up," he said gruffly. "It's freezing out here. We've got to get you to someplace warmer."

"Oh, what do you care?" the other snapped.

Matt frowned. "You're dripping wet and you're freezing. I didn't just save you from drowning yourself to let you catch pneumonia and die."

Rio looked up with tear-stained eyes, her cheeks a cherry-red color and her wet, dark hair still hanging in front of her eyes. "I don't need your help," she insisted, her voice breaking.

"Sure. That's why you're alone, out in the middle of a freezing night with almost no clothes on, looking as though you haven't eaten in a week and trying to kill yourself. Look, I'll give you a choice. You can come with me or I can take you to the police and tell them you what you were doing. Either way, you're safe and I can sleep with a clear conscience tonight."

"You don't have to burden your conscience with me," the girl shot back, but Matt stood firm against her glare, his arms folded across his chest. Rio sighed, sad eyes lowering against the hopelessness of her situation. He hated her, she knew, but was left with no choice. "Fine, Matt Ishida. I... I'll go with you."

*****

Matt took the key from his pocket and opened the door to the apartment that he shared with his father. Rio followed him in hesitantly, looking about the room. "What about your family?"

"My dad's out of town, and T.K. lives with mom." The boy closed the door behind the girl and locked both the knob and the deadbolt. He motioned with his hand, ushering the girl into the living room.

Matt quickly stripped off his wet shirt and grabbed a clean one from his room as they were passing. "The shower is down there," he said, jerking his thumb down the hallway. "The towels are under the sink, and I'll find you something dry to wear for when you're done."

"You don't have to do this," Rio answered, feeling a deep shame that he would be so solicitous of her after their past together.

__

"Tell me about it," the boy murmured in response, his words unheard by the girl. Then, "Yeah, I do, 'cause I gotta eat here tonight, and I'm not going to be able to do it with you smelling the way that you do."

The girl blinked. When she had been younger, she remembered her parents using the same kind of depreciating humor on one another to display their closeness and affection. For just a moment, she felt better than she had in… well, for as long as she could recall. "Fine," she said, marching down the hallway that the boy had indicated.

The girl turned on the water to a warm setting, and was just ready to strip off her shirt when the door opened. Matt set an older-looking set of clothes down near the sink. "I don't have any girl's clothes, so you'll just have to wear some of my old ones. Oh," he paused, and opened up a drawer and pulled out a set of unopened straight-razor blades, placing them in his shirt pocket. "Just so you don't get any ideas."

Rio watched the boy as he closed the door behind him, then proceeded to strip off the flimsy shirt that she was wearing, then her pants as well. Wearing only her undergarments, the thin girl looked into the mirror, then turned around and craned her head about to glimpse just what Matt had seen on her back. Despite the fact that the beatings from Roan's hands had taken place for the previous three years at the least, she had never actually looked to see what physical evidence her sadist of a brother had left.

Rio almost sobbed as she caught her first sight of the ruined flesh that was her back. No wonder Matt felt sorry for her. Older scars as well as more recent ones were scattered liberally across her skin, and though they had all healed long ago, she knew that the evidence of what he'd done to her would be there always.

As if it were compelling her to stop looking, the mirror then fogged up from the steam coming from the shower. All of a sudden the girl felt exceptionally dirty. The scars on her back were bad enough, but what she had been forced to do with Roan to keep him from beating her further… that was truly indecent.

Rio sighed as she stepped into the warm water, then turned the knob to make it a bit hotter. Turning away from the nozzle, she allowed the water to soothe the aching muscles on her back and to wash away the memories of her abhorrent past.

*****

Matt put some water to boil on the stove and then turned back to the meal that he had been preparing for the girl. Nothing special, just a quick pasta dish that wouldn't take to long to prepare. He started to mix the noodles quickly, then stopped and stared into the bowl. _What's wrong with me? _the small voice in his head demanded. _Why can't I stop thinking about her?_

Matt sighed, then stirred the food all the faster. He just felt sorry for her, that was _all._ Nothing else… not affection, not even casual friendship… just pity.

Minutes later the blond-haired boy slammed the metal pan down on the counter in frustration. _She tried to kill us! _he screamed at himself. _Now I've saved her, brought her into my house and… God, I'm _cooking _for her._

Matt heard the water in the shower stop, and he went back to the now boiling water. With a sigh he poured two small cups of the steaming liquid and dropped some tea leaves in each, then set both of the cups on the table. Quietly he spooned some of the pasta into a couple of plates and placed one beside the cup that he had made for the girl, putting his own on the counter. _I'll save her life, take her to my house and cook for her, but I'll be damned if I'm going to eat with her._

Moments later, Rio walked on bare feet into the kitchen. Matt looked at her once, then quickly dropped his eyes. Now that she had been cleaned up and her hair was washed, the girl was really… _pretty, _he thought, at the last minute consciously making the choice not to think 'beautiful'.

Rio said nothing and sat down at the place that Matt had prepared for her, her eyes going hungrily to the food. Forcing herself not to devour it like a starving animal would, the girl used the best table manners that she had ever been taught and ate slowly.

Matt watched her in silence for a few moments, then frowned. "How long has it been since you've had anything to eat?" he asked, his voice serious.

Rio looked up briefly but then turned her eyes away from the boy's steely blue ones. "A few days, I think. I'm not really sure," she replied.

The dark-haired girl reached for the steaming cup of tea and took a sip, almost sighing in contentment as the liquid warmed her insides as she shower had done for her muscles. She continued to study the food on her plate, then asked quietly,"Aren't you going to eat with me?"

Matt almost sighed audibly. The girl had not even looked up to ask the question… _afraid of rejection?_

The boy took his own plate and sat down opposite the girl, staring at her quietly. It was almost impossible to believe that this was the same girl that they had met in the caverns of the mountain that half-year before. At the time she had been cruel, loud and boisterous. Now she was so timid that she couldn't even look at him to ask him to sit beside her.

Matt couldn't contain his questions any longer. "What happened to you?" he asked pointedly. "Six months ago you were as cold and heartless as anyone that I've ever met before, and believe me, I've met some real bastards. Now you… you... well, look at you!" he snapped in frustration.

The girl's lips trembled, and for a moment Matt felt sorry for raising his voice. "I… I had to be like that, then," she said, so quietly that the boy could hardly hear her. "It was the only way that I could get along with the others. Ian, Daven, Leiko and Roan… especially Roan. He had no patience for people who weren't like him. If I couldn't learn to be like him… well, you saw what happened…"

Matt bit his lip. He wanted desperately to believe the girl, but… "And what's happened since then?"

Rio swallowed another sip of tea, then continued. "After you five let me go, I wandered around for the longest time, not really having anyplace to go. My parents are long gone, and before I had always just done what Roan wanted. This... this was really my first time ever out on my own." She smiled. "Guess I didn't do such a great job, huh?"

Matt almost smiled, then stopped himself. Then he shook his head once. That wasn't quite fair. If it had been any of his friends he would have appreciated the self-disparaging attempt at humor… even a stranger might have evoked a smile from him. Why not her?

At a silent while, Rio finished her food and stood up. Matt watched her, not having said a word since hearing what the girl had said. The girl padded on her bare feet across the room and stopped by Matt's side, then she leaned over and gave him a slow kiss on the cheek. "Thank you," she whispered, then grabbed her shoes from their spot near the door and started to turn the lock.

Matt almost flinched at the kiss, then stood up at the girl started to leave. "Stop," he insisted. "You can't... you can't leave yet."

Rio looked genuinely surprised. "Why not?"

__

Yeah, why not? the taunting voice in Matt's head muttered again. "Look… just stay," the boy persisted. "My dad won't be home for another couple of days, and I'd rather not send you back out onto the streets any sooner than I have to."

Rio looked at the boy with a strange expression on her face. Then she nodded and got to her feet and walked over to Matt's side, again kissing him, this time on the other cheek. "Thank you again," she said quietly.

"For what?"

"For caring. I can't remember the last time that anyone cared."

*****

Matt tossed fitfully in bed that night, the girl's last words echoing in his head. _Caring? _Did he really care? He wasn't sure that he wanted to… but for the life of him he couldn't think of another explanation.

"This is ridiculous," he muttered, finally giving up on the pretense of sleep and sitting up in bed. He held the pillow tight against his chest and rested his chin on it. "I don't care about her, and I _didn't_ fall in love with her just because I feel sorry for her."

Matt's eyes widened as he heard the words that passed his lips. _God… tell me I didn't just say what I think I did._ No. No, no, no. That was just not possible. He did not just meet a girl that had tried to kill him a few short months ago and in six hours fall in love with her. That just didn't happen, he was sure of it, no matter how beautiful she was.

Matt looked out the window at the full moon with a sigh. This was getting him nowhere. He had to talk to her. He didn't know exactly why, but was beginning to have a suspicion… and that suspicion didn't sit well with him at all.

Matt left his room and pulled on a button-up shirt, through he didn't bother to fasten it closed as he went quietly to T.K.'s room. His little brother stayed with him infrequently, but it was still often enough that his bed was covered with clean sheets and pillows. As he walked in, he heard Rio stirring as she rested underneath the thin covers. Matt closed the door quietly behind him and sat down on a little chair near the bed, watching the girl.

Moonlight from the window spilled down onto her face, giving it an innocent, almost childlike appearance. Matt frowned. He wanted desperately to believe her story from earlier that night about fitting in with the others solely for her own safety, but had to have some proof. The scars on her back were ugly, yes, but could he believe that story either? He just wasn't certain, and myriad, confusing thoughts ran wild throughout his head.

Then the girl's tossing became more fitful, and she sniffled and once or twice sobbed deeply in her sleep. "No, please,' she murmured quietly, then almost flinching against an imagined pain from the past. "No!" she screamed loudly, and sat up quickly in bed. And what did she scream out? For her parents? For her brother, or anyone on her past?

No.

"Matt!" the girl wailed, and then the boy was at her side, cradling her head against his bare chest and stroking her dark hair soothingly.

Matt's lips trembled, and at that moment he experienced what he had been most afraid of for most of that day. He could almost feel his heart leave his chest and place itself firmly and willingly into the girl's thin hands. "Rio, shh, " he murmured gently, rocking her as he continued to pet her hair. "It's all right. I'm here. And I promise that I'm not… I'm not going to leave…"

Rio looked up, frightened. The fear of the dream was passing, but now it was being replaced by another fear, deeper, more disturbing. She had not thought that she could love, did not think herself capable of that most complicated of emotions any longer after what she had been though with Roan. Yet the feeling of Matt's bare chest against her cheek and the tenderness that she could feel radiating from him for her did for her soul what the water had done for her flesh and the tea for her body. Warmed it… soothed it… and at that moment, if it had not happened before, the girl fell in love with him.

Matt's blue eyes locked with Rio's dark ones, and slowly he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. Blond hairs intertwined with black ones and the two embraced one another tightly, the girl's mouth moving feverishly against the boy's as his love nourished her and nursed her back to health. She felt overwhelmed with passion and desire for the strong young male opposite her, and after another few minutes she reluctantly pulled her mouth off of his. "We really need to talk," she whispered, and Matt nodded his head.

__

Oh my God, he thought, closing his eyes in despair. _What on earth am I going to tell the others?_


	2. The Unlikeliest Pair

The deep, sonorous sound of a diminutive gong being struck echoed throughout the halls of the large mansion, waking the handsome young man from the shallow reverie in which he had sat. His face betrayed a small frown as he sat up, then slowly rose from his comfortable chair and moved towards the large staircase at the rear of the room. _Why always in the middle of my best meditation?_ he thought irritably. But he did not hesitate, of course, for the one who called was not one whom any sane individual would keep waiting.

Nevertheless, the conceited teen did pause to look at his reflection in the hallway mirror. He knew that vanity and attention to self were vices of which his master approved greatly, and early in their working relationship he had learned to appreciate them as well. Sloppiness and an unsightly appearance were never tolerated within the walls of that house.

The young man was exceedingly well dressed. His master's rather… unique… abilities provided the two of them with capital enough to purchase anything and everything that either of them might ever want or need. The clothes he was in now, though just something that he wore around the large house, had cost enough to feed a poorer family for a month.

His hair was cropped moderately short. He had always worn it that way, and had kept the long sideburns intact as well. But unlike before he had joined with his new partner his hair was now a stark white in color; bleached free of its darkness by the hell he'd been put through at freeing this creature from its prison. But the coloring itself was not unpleasant and was indeed rather unique, and it provided him with an air of mysteriousness that women who might have otherwise have rejected his romantic advances seemed to find appealing. Which was fortunate, because somehow he knew that the event which had caused it to become colorless would keep it that way until the day of his death.

The bleaching, however, had not affected the rest of his features. His thick, dark eyebrows still allowed his eyes to stand out among his facial traits, and now he wore a short, black goatee as well. All told he had to consider himself, and apparently many young women agreed, irresistibly handsome.

Again the diminutive gong was rung, managing somehow, though the sound had not changed, to give the impression of irritation. The young man gave himself one last glance in the mirror, flicked a nonexistent mote of dirt from his collar, and slowly mounted the stairs.

The door to his master's study creaked loudly as he pushed it opened, as had the stairs that he'd just climbed. The teen wondered, with all the wealth that his master had access to, that the less desirable traits of their home had yet to be repaired.

It was dark in his master's room. The curtains, of course, were drawn shut, his master preferring controlled, artificial light to that of the sun. A single candle sitting on the desk behind which his master sat provided the only illumination for the entire, immense room, and the darkly handsome teen had to wait for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust as the door eased shut behind him.

"Sit," the dark figure behind the table ordered.

The other did as he was told, sinking into an oversized, plush chair. "Your promptness leaves much to be desired," the master said with a scowl.

The teen frowned a question in response. His master was never, ever rushed. Everything that the creature had ever said or done in his presence was always deliberate, calculated, as if time itself would be subject to alteration to meet his agenda. The young man watched in silence as the pair of evil, golden eyes opposite him drifted to the strategic map on which the dark creature had been working as of late. The one on which figurines of the two of them sat on one side, and on the other sat a large and rapidly increasing number of other figures. Just to the side of the board were six more of the intricate figures, as of yet unaligned to either of the sides.

The adolescent opened his mouth to reply, but was silenced by a look from his master. "Spare me the excuse. I know what you were doing."

The creature's breathing was labored, his words coming in gasps. He had, his adolescent partner knew, been involved with several projects which were rapidly depleting his considerable strength. "What do you want of me?" the boy queried.

The other paused, shifting his cowl to cover more of his pale, paper-thin flesh. "In the months that we have known each other, I have provided you with much, correct?"

The teen's eyes narrowed. The answer to the question was obvious. Were in not for this creature he would almost certainly be dead now. Yet here he was, living in the lap of luxury like none but the wealthiest in the world would ever know. More, perhaps, as he had occasional access to his master's supernatural powers. The best food, the finest clothes… a nightly parade of beautiful women to his bed, nothing less than total bliss.

"And in all that time, I have asked little from you. Simply to be ready for the time when I needed you, yes?"

The other nodded a response.

"That time has now come."

The teen caught his breath. As much as he enjoyed the life of luxury which he now enjoyed, his soul was one that was born for action. And he relished that challenge that had been set for him, as well as looked forward to settling an old score. "I had thought that it was to be several more months before we did anything definitive."

"Our plans have changed," the other said, the raspy words dribbling from his lips. "That fool who fancies himself 'Kaiser' of my homeworld," he waived a clawed hand at the larger group of figures on the map," is moving much faster than I had anticipated. If we do not act now… it may be too late."

"Very well, then. What is it that you want done?"

"I want you to begin gathering the six. One at a time," and here he paused, glancing up at the other. _"One_ at a time," he repeated, "starting with the weakest." The creature removed one of the figures from off the map and set it in front of the boy, at the same time burning that individual's image into his partner's brain with a thought.

"Gathering? Why not just kill them and be done with it?" The young man asked casually, his soul still ablaze with hatred at those in this group.

"Idiot!" snarled the creature, slamming a fist to the table. Many of the figurines, which he had to have spent hours arraigning, toppled to the floor. "If I wanted them dead I would have done it myself. I want them defeated, _not dead_. Angry, but not hateful. Shaken--"

"Not stirred?" the other quipped.

The golden eyes again caught the teen and held him. The creature's body may have been ravaged by two of those in the group, but those eyes still exuded power and authority. "The humor of your race continues to escape me. Just get the girl. Use whatever methods you must, and whatever powers I have given you. But remember! They must all come willingly to this place, else my power is restrained. And no more than one at a time! My task will be hard enough as it is."

The boy stood, then paused. "Are there not supposed to be eight?"

His master looked, for a moment, disturbed... perhaps even fearful. "Do nothing with the youngest. Avoid the two of them if you can. Remember, while the powers of the others are dormant, those two still wield theirs, if clumsily. Any power that you can wield on my behalf will not prevail against them."

The other nodded as he turned and moved back to the door through which he had entered. As the boy left, he heard his master muttering to himself… "As Hope and Light beget Faith, so too from Knowledge and Purity springs Wisdom…"

*****

__

One week later…

"Mimi!" Kari smiled as she opened the door for the last of the original eight to arrive. The older girl was, of course, dressed predominantly in pink, from her lip-gloss to her shoes.

"Hi Kari," returned the other, embracing the younger girl tightly. "Sorry it took me so long to get here. I… I'm running a little behind today."

"That's okay," Kari responded brightly. "Come on into the living room. We didn't want to start eating without you."

Mimi nodded and followed her to the room, where the other six were already seated around the table. Tai and Sora sat at the head, whispering quietly in one another's ear. Kari joined T.K., who was staring hungrily at the food, on their right. On the left, Matt and Joe, engaged in some sort of discussion which seemed to be centered around Joe's refusal to eat seafood. And sitting right in front of her, next to an empty seat, Izzy. The red-haired boy graciously moved away from the table and held the chair out for her. "Thank you," Mimi whispered, her voice subdued.

When the girl finally sat, the eyes of Tai, Matt and T.K. all met in the center of the table, and as one they all moved quickly for the food. Sora and Kari gave a quiet groan and buried their eyes in their hands as their respective boyfriends stabbed the same piece of meatloaf with their forks and tore it apart while trying to get it on to their plates.

Izzy, on the other hand, was the soul of courtesy. He removed a platter of steaming vegetables from in front of his plate and offered it to Mimi. "No, thank you Izzy," the girl murmured quietly again, lowering her eyes away from those of the red-haired boy's.

Izzy looked confused, then spooned himself a small portion and passed the dish to Joe, who was busy trying to maintain order as the three other boys engaged in a minor war over who would have access to the best dishes first. The oldest of them all gave a disparaging look at the trio. Knowing how the three were, he expected that the girl would have arranged this better.

Throughout the dinner, Izzy continuously tried to offer various dishes to Mimi, all of which the girl refused with the same, disheartened tone. The boy stared at her, somewhat confused. This wasn't the Mimi that he had known all these years, always so bright and energetic… even when bright and energetic weren't quite appropriate. It wasn't even the same Mimi that he had been out on a date with the week before. As always, both of them knew that she was scheduled to leave town at the end of the month, so they had both agreed to keep their potential relationship confined to a specific point.

Halfway through the meal, Sora too finally noticed that Mimi's plate remained clean. "Mimi? Is something wrong?" the older girl asked, always the surrogate mother to the group.

"I'm… just not very hungry," the other responded hesitantly, pushing back from the table. Now T.K. took notice of the girl's uncharacteristic reticence as well and turned, leaving only Tai and Matt to fight over the food while Joe tried to keep the peace.

Sora glanced once at Kari, who returned a nod, and together the two of them left their seats and went to Mimi's side, each of them taking an arm and leading the girl towards Kari's bedroom. T.K. blinked and then scrambled to follow them inside, shutting the door behind him. The four boys at the table watched as their youngest trailed the girls into that feminine sanctuary, then tried (and failed) to suppress their laughter as Kari firmly led him out by the shoulders. "Uh-uh, buster," she smiled, kissing him once then returning through the door.

Now that the three girls were alone, Sora sat Mimi down on Kari's bed and the two stood over her. "Okay, Mimi," Sora started. "What's going on?"

Mimi looked down, a pink flush that matched her clothes appearing on her cheeks as she studied her folded hands. "I… I can't tell you."

"Why not?" asked Kari, puzzled. "I thought we could always talk about anything together. If something's wrong--"

"You'll think it's… it's too… silly."

"Mimi! We will not!" protested Kari.

Mimi sniffled once, glancing up at Sora. "I did… when it was you…" she said.

"Oh," the older girl responded briefly. Then, as she started to understand the context, "Oh! I see!" Because several weeks ago, when Sora had been trying to resolve her romantic triangle with Tai and Matt, Mimi had been distinctly unhelpful by rushing the other girl to make up her mind. But the girl had, in the end and if unintentionally, given Sora the notion that had ultimately solved her romantic dilemma.

Kari glowed with a playful grin, picking up on the subject as well. "Ooh, is it anybody we know?"

Mimi had been hoping to avoid that question. The pink flush on her cheeks was now turning red and spreading to her ears. "Well... yes. At least, one of them is…"

Izzy really hadn't intended to hear. He was not-- definitely was not-- an eavesdropper. But on his way to check on Mimi he had happened to pause outside the door, just long enough to catch a snippet of the conversation. Apparently Kari had pressured the girl into speaking his name. And though the initial pause had been innocent enough...

The boy didn't honestly know how to feel. Mimi liked him… like that? And who was this other, unnamed rival that he had for the girl's affections? Did he even want the girl's affections?

Quietly he moved away from the door, back to where the others were sitting. Matt and Tai were still being quite unruly, and the noise was grating on Izzy's ears. He needed some time, some quiet time alone to think. "Tai," the younger boy said, standing. "I've got to go… somewhere. Tell the others I'm sorry I left without saying 'bye."

"Uh, well sure, Izzy," Tai answered, staring after the other with a confused look in his eyes. He remained that way until the red-haired boy closed the door behind him, then turned to resume his argument with Matt.

*****

'Somewhere' ended up being the library just down the street from Tai and Kari's apartment. _I am not jealous! _his conscious thoughts insisted fervently. Jealousy was an emotion for those in love, and Izzy was quite certain that he was _not_ in love with Mimi. Certainly he felt a deep friendship with the girl, but it was the exact same friendship that he had for Tai or Sora or any of the others. Anything more, at this point in time, would have been simply irrational.

The boy looked up from the computer screen at which he sat, his brow furrowed. In love or not, he simply could not concentrate on what he was doing for thinking of the flighty little girl. With a deep, forlorn sigh (one which would instantly have told Kari or Sora that he most certainly _was _in love) he shut down the screen and left the building, first checking out with the librarian on duty.

The chill of night had descended to the air while he had been in the building, and the boy tried to slip deeper into his sweater. Almost unconsciously he gave a quick glance back towards Tai's apartment, wondering if the reunion had ended yet. And then, at that very moment and as if fate itself had decided that he was not to be allowed to banish the brown-haired girl from his thoughts, Mimi stepped from the front door and walked quietly down the street in the opposite direction.

Izzy exhaled deeply, his warm breath visible against the chill of the night air. And suddenly he was torn between what his substantial intellect was telling him that he should do and what his oft-underestimated heart commanded him to. Of course, the purely logical decision was to simply go home and to sleep on it, but at that moment, the boy surrendered to the fact that this was a time when logic would have to wait. With an almost weary look in his eyes he crossed the street and followed after the girl.

__

What do I say to her? the boy thought as he moved down the sidewalk. _Mimi, stop! I think I'm in love with you? _Ugh, no. He almost wanted to bite his tongue for thinking it. That was something more suited to Tai.

The boy had narrowed the gap between the two to about fifty feet when he suddenly stopped and ducked behind a nearby tree. Mimi had interrupted her walk, and was talking with someone on the dimly illuminated sidewalk just ahead. A very large someone, from what Izzy could see. _Who…?_

Izzy, still keeping in the shadows, moved a few steps closer to the pair. _I am not a stalker! _he thought with indignity. _Just… concerned… about a friend._

As he crept closer, Izzy started to feel foolish. The person with whom Mimi was speaking simply could not be his rival for her affection. The larger figure was fully-grown, and had to have at least four or five years on the girl. _Must be a family friend or something…_

Then, to his shock and dismay, the older teen leaned over Mimi and embraced her tightly, covering her mouth with his own and sliding a hand down the small of her back! Izzy's brow furrowed in bewilderment. He had caught a glimpse of the other's face during the time. _A beard? How old is this guy?_

"Izzy?" a familiar voice from behind him queried. The brown-haired boy quickly nipped out from his hiding spot, but only long enough to cover T.K.'s mouth with his gloved hand and to pull the younger boy down beside him.

"Shh!" the older boy ordered, both alarmed that they might be heard and embarrassed at having been caught spying.

"Mmph!" was the muffled response.

Izzy silenced T.K. with a glare, then went back to his surveillance. When he finally released his grip on T.K.'s mouth, the blond boy sat up and glanced curiously at his friend. Izzy said nothing, only indicated the scene before the two of them with a nod of his head.

T.K. still looked confused, but then deferred to the older boy's judgment as he took in the scene as well. His ears flushed a deep red as again the stranger bent Mimi over for a passionate kiss, then pulled her up and moved to open the door of a nearby car for the girl. As he allowed the girl in, T.K. finally caught a glimpse of the older boy's face.

The youngest of the boy felt his eyes pop open, the moisture leave his mouth. The beard was new, the hair now white, but there was no mistaking those vindictive eyes or the arrogant stance. "No!" he shouted madly, his voice coarse as he jumped out from Izzy's hiding place and rushed at the elegant car while literally dragging the brown-haired boy behind him. "No, Mimi!"

The dark teen stopped on his way to the driver's side door and gave the pair rushing towards him a smirking look that could best be described as amused…


	3. One Good Turn?

Chapter Two 

"Roan!" the younger boy shouted in a challenge, drawing an amused glance of indifference from the white-haired adolescent who had just put Mimi into his car.

Izzy slowed, stunned as he heard T.K. shout. "Roan?" he repeated in alarm, remembering that T.K. and the others had very nearly lost their lives fighting against one with that name during the previous year. "Tai's Roan?" he called to the back of the blond-haired boy, then quickly scrambled after him.

T.K. slid to a stop in front of the evil teen, his blue eyes locked angrily upon the older boy's dark face. "Let her go, Roan," he insisted fiercely, his little hands balling up into fists at his side.

"And what if she doesn't want to go, _Takeru_?" the other demanded in response, looming over the much smaller boy.

Izzy finally came to a stop at his friend's side, panting heavily. He was admittedly not in as good of shape as the younger boy, but the look in his eyes was just as ferocious as he also squared off to fight against Mimi's abductor. Then, seeing that Roan was already preoccupied with his younger companion, Izzy yanked open the car door and grabbed Mimi by the arm, pulling her out.

Roan, surprisingly, made no move to stop him, and it was doubtful that the much smaller T.K. standing in front of him was any impediment. With an evil chuckle that came from the depths of his throat he glanced over at the young girl, his eyes flashing. Thanks to his Master's almost mesmerizing influence over humans who were not prepared to resist, she was already well within his power. She did not see him as he truly was, but instead as everything that she could want him to be. 

"Get off of me!" Mimi snapped, yanking her arm from Izzy's grasp and slapping him smartly across the face. Izzy reeled back, stunned by the ugly tone of the girl as much as the blow.

"You see," said Roan, suavely. "She wants to come with me, don't you, lover?"

Mimi eyed the dark boy hungrily as she walked to his side, reaching for him and brushing past T.K.'s shoulder on the way. The embrace that she met him with was almost indecent in its ardor, her body entwining with his like a serpent.

Izzy's heart felt shattered to pieces in his chest, and T.K. looked sickened. The younger boy gave a quick, sideways glance at Izzy and then turned back to the standoff against the older teen. "It's not what it looks like, Izzy," T.K. relayed to his friend. "His crest does things to people. He's using it against her, or something."

Half of Roan's mouth twisted into a condescending leer as his hand slid down the small of Mimi's back. "Such a simple and straightforward and _wrong _explanation, boy. Or don't you remember? Mine is the crest of Hatred. Would you care for a reminder?" And with that he stuck two fingers of his left hand into the pocket on his vest and he pulled out the crimson-red pendant, flashing it in front of the eyes of the two boys.

T.K. flinched just slightly as the scent of evil filled his nostrils, then quickly recovered as the crest of Hope burned a fiery retort against the bare skin of his chest and fought off the other's harmful influence. "That won't work, Roan. You'll never-- _oww_!" he exclaimed, his defiant words interrupted as Izzy slammed a fist into the back of his head, then tackled him to the ground.

T.K. struggled in vain to extricate himself from Izzy's grasp, but the other's sudden rage had given him an uncommon strength and a willingness to fight just as dirty as was necessary to keep the younger boy face down on the pavement. And so T.K. was forced to watch helplessly as Roan once again corralled the all-too-willing Mimi into the car, started the engine and drove off with the odor of burning rubber in his wake. Desperately the blond-haired boy rolled over and tried to catch the plate number of the car as it went, but Izzy's frantic struggling made it quite impossible to read.

"Izzy!" he shouted, rolling the older boy onto his back. T.K. was the stronger, the more athletic of the two, but he was trying his best not to hurt his friend in the skirmish. And Izzy, relying on the strength of his insane fury, reared back and caught T.K. with a sharp elbow to the ribs. The younger boy gasped in pain as the other snarled angrily at him. "I'll teach you to interfere with my--"

"Izzy, stop it!" commanded a familiar voice from somewhere above the two, and then Matt was there, grabbing the boy about the wrist and pulling him away. "What are you doing?"

Izzy struggled against the other's vice-like lock on his arm. "I'm gonna kick his--"

T.K. staggered to his feet, holding the back of his head with his hand. "No, Matt!" interrupted the oldest boy's young brother. "It… it was Roan! He's got Mimi! He used his Crest against Izzy and made him that way!"

"Roan?" whispered a quiet, timid voice from behind Matt's shoulder. It was just then that T.K. noticed that his brother was not alone. A tall, thin girl, draped in a flimsy veil stood just behind him. With an evident alarm at having been seen, she again ducked behind Matt's shoulder as T.K. glanced at her.

__

"Oh no," Matt exhaled, stunned into immobility as his hands dropped free of Izzy's wrist. His eyes were expressionless. "Mimi…"

Izzy was breathing heavily now, but the bewildered expression on his face made it clear that the insane fury had lost his influence over him. He was horrified at what he'd just done, and he turned to face the younger boy. "T.K. … I'm… I'm so sorry. I don't know why I… what just happened…"

T.K. felt dizzy and a little bit nauseous, and his eyes were having trouble focusing on the others. "No... it's all right, Izzy. I should have been ready for that. I knew about the crest. It had Tai, Matt and Sora at each other's throats the first time we met him. You weren't there."

Izzy frowned, still looking fierce, though now his anger was not focused on the younger boy. "The next time I see him, I'll be ready."

"No, you can't," whispered the veiled girl, gently pushing aside Matt's arm when it seemed that he would keep her away from the two. Quietly she approached the two boys, her head still bowed. "You cannot resist Roan's power simply by being aware of its existence. It takes more, much more than that, or if it is his desire that you should hate... you _will _hate."

"Stop... _please_," murmured Matt into the girl's ear, trying once again to grab her by the arm. She only shook her bowed head at him, sadly it seemed, in response.

"Matt?" asked T.K., perplexed by his brother's actions. The back of his head was throbbing angrily where Izzy had struck him, and dark spots clouded his vision as he peered at the veiled girl. "Your voice seems familiar somehow. Do I know you?"

"Yes. Yes, you do Takeru Takaishi." She moved a hand towards the thin veil that shrouded her face.

"No!" Matt now insisted, catching her by the arm and holding her firmly. "He…" he turned to his little brother. "You won't understand."

The girl's response to the boy was gentle, and comforting. "Matt, this time had to come. You agreed. It only seems appropriate that we tell T.K. first. You said that it wasn't in your brother to hate anyone. Time to find out how well you know him, because if he can hate anyone, it will be me." And with that she slowly lifted the thin veil from her face.

T.K. was stunned, his lips quivering and his mouth falling open in horror. He stumbled backwards, tripping off the edge of the curb and falling to his backside. His head was swimming. "T.K., please let me explain," said Matt quickly, the look of betrayal in his little brother's eyes breaking his heart. "We've been together for a few weeks now, even since Tai and Sora started… I meant to tell you, meant to tell all of you… but most of all you… because of what she tried to do to you."

T.K. couldn't take this in, and the sound of blood pounding in his ears blotted out his brother's words. The world in front of his eyes reeled all around him and quickly faded to black. A deep black... black as the night, black as the girl's heart. _My brother's girlfriend? Rio Kuroda?_

*****

T.K. was awakened by the feeling of someone running their fingers slowly though his hair, and the sharp pain in his head had been reduced to a dull ache. He was lying down, his head on a soft cushion of sorts even as it pounded a protest at having been treated so roughly by Izzy. Reluctantly his eyes came open, and he looked right into Kari's gentle face. It was her lap on which his head rested, her fingers which made their way through his hair. And it was her lovely, genuine smile that shown down on him to numb the pain from the injury.

"T.K.?" his brother whispered quietly from somewhere beside him, the older boy sitting quietly on a chair next to the bed in Kari's room.

"Matt!" the younger boy bolted upright in alarm. His head protested the sudden movement, and for an uncomfortable moment the dizziness returned. Kari grabbed at his hand and held it tightly, and she glanced uncertainly at the older boy.

"Please," Matt said as he looked at the young pair, his voice thick with worry. "I didn't mean for the two of you to find out like this. Really I didn't. I meant to tell you all along, but it just never seemed like the right time..."

It might well have been that Kari's hand on his arm was the only thing keeping T.K. from slipping back into oblivion at that point, as the look in his eyes betrayed not even a hint of responsiveness. But for a bout of extraordinary luck or some sort of divine blessing he should have been dead at the hands of that girl almost a year ago. "But she almost... she tried to..."

The boy's evident pain crushed his older brother, and unshed tears pooled in Matt's eyes. Fiercely he caught his little brother in a tight embrace, his hands pulling the young boy against his chest. "I'll won't _ever _let that happen, T.K. I know it sounds hard to believe, but she's really not like that. After she left the others, she changed."

"Or so she says," replied Kari in a gentle voice, clearly concerned. Rio had literally come within inches of costing her the boy she loved so much that she simply could not imagine living without him. Now she was causing him more pain in making him think that his brother had betrayed him.

"And I trust her," Matt said with a nod. "But T.K., I didn't want to believe it at first either. I even tried to leave her where I found her, to forget about her, but something made me stay and listen to what she had to say. T.K., you've got to believe in me, even if you don't believe in her. She did what she did out of fear of Roan. He's terribly violent and manipulative, and he used her fear to control her. Please... _please_, I'm begging you. If you don't hate me yet then at least talk to her. Listen to her. T.K. … I love her."

T.K. pulled out of his brother's embrace, blinking away the tears in his own eyes. Then he wiped a sleeve across his eyes when the more face-saving gesture didn't work, and Kari wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind. The warmth of the young girl's embrace renewed his strength again, as his embrace had once renewed hers. His blue eyes met his brother's. "I trust you, Matt," he said in a voice no louder than a whisper. "But, Mimi…"

"Izzy's working on it, squirt," answered Matt, leaning forward to muss the boy's golden hair. "You know he'll tells us if he comes up with anything. For now, just talk to her. Both of you, please?"

T.K. turned around within Kari's arms to glance at her. The girl paused briefly, then responded with a single nod. Matt flashed her a thankful smile for supporting his cause and stood, leaving the darkened room. The full moon outside provided the only illumination, and the young pair looked seriously at one another. "Do you believe him?" the boy asked, a messy tuft of blond hair partially obscuring his eyes.

Kari looked troubled. "I believe that he believes, T.K., and we all have to trust one another's judgments if we're going to rely on one another. And he really is in love with her, that much is obvious. But I'm still worried about him, because before she left, Mimi said almost the exact same thing about her mystery lover. And apparently that's Roan."

The door to the bedroom gave a creak as it opened slowly, and light from the hallway flooded the room. Rio walked quietly into the room, allowing the door to close behind her. She looked somewhat stronger, healthier than the day that the two had seen her last, when her skin had been deathly pale from months of living in the dank caverns. And gone as well was the ugly arrogance and hatred that she'd shown towards them. Now she looked nervous, almost skittish, about how the pair would receive her after what she'd done before. The boy's approval was something that she desperately needed if she and Matt were to remain together, and since the girl meant so much to him, it was necessary to have her support as well.

She knelt at the foot of the bed and paused, looking up at the pair. Then she gave a very brief nod. "Takeru Takaishi... Hikari Kamiya... I have come to beg you both for your forgiveness..."

*****

"Any luck?" asked Matt as he joined Tai and Izzy in the living room.

"No," snapped Tai in a frustrated response. Izzy said nothing as he continued to tap furiously on the keyboard to his laptop, scanning city files for any clue to where Roan might have taken the girl.

"The police?"

"Took Izzy's report, but said they wouldn't do anything unless her legal guardian called because the abduction wasn't 'violent'."

"Well then, call her dad!"

"He's not there," murmured Izzy, not pausing his search long enough to look up. "God only knows what that man does, but he's nearly impossible to get in touch with."

And then something on the screen caught Izzy's eye amidst the jumble of words and numbers. Nothing definitive, just a listing that any of the others might have passed up without another thought. But as he gave it a second, then a third glance, his exceptional mind finally put together what had drawn his attention to it in the first place. The boy gave a surreptitious pause to make certain that Tai and Matt weren't looking, committed the address to memory, then powered down the computer.

"Giving up?" asked Tai.

Izzy bowed his head and rubbed his temples with his fingers. "I just can't read any more, Tai," he replied, quickly manufacturing a yawn to emphasize his fatigue. He wasn't the world's best actor, but both of the two older boys had their minds on a couple of something elses just then, so he didn't have to be that convincing. "My brain feels like it's been fried." That much was true, at least.

"You want to sleep on the couch?" Tai offered. He was sure that his parents wouldn't mind. The rest of the group of eight regularly stayed the night at one another's homes.

Izzy feigned another yawn and a stretch. _Don't overdo it! _he chastised himself. _Just get up, say 'bye' and go._ "No thanks, Tai. I'll just catch a cab home. It won't take too long. I'll be back first thing in the morning, and you've got my number if you think of anything. Of _anything_."

Tai and Matt nodded vaguely, still preoccupied with thoughts of the missing girl and the fact that both of their siblings were still alone in the bedroom with Rio. Then Tai turned. "Right. And you've got my number if you think of anything, 'k?"

Izzy fought down a momentary sensation of guilt. There was no reason why he shouldn't tell the others what he'd discovered, except that he was determined to do this alone. They would never have suspected such an emotion from him; they continued to look at him much as they did his computer. Somewhat distant from his emotions and working with a machine-like precision. But he was _not _a computer. And the feelings that he continued to struggle with were now becoming harder and harder to control as he thought of what might happen to Mimi in the hands of Roan. _Am I in love with her? Or just honestly concerned about a friend? _"Right," Izzy replied, scooting towards the door and exiting.

*****

Mimi wailed in pain as the tall, menacing figure bound her tightly to the chair in the center of the room. A mere half an hour ago she had been inexplicably overcome with desire for this dark, handsome young man with the dazzling features. Now she was filled with terror and struggled furiously against the wires that he bound her with.

"Oh, shut up!" he snapped, forcefully stuffing a gag into her mouth. The piece of cloth tasted filthy, and the scent of the boy's strong cologne, which an hour ago she thought was the most delightful odor on earth, now caused the tears that had remained in her eyes to roll down her cheeks.

Mimi saw the boy glance over her shoulder. "Yes, she came along willingly," he snapped to someone behind her. "More than willingly. Anxiously. You said that once she came inside I could drop the pretense. So I will. Oh, that's right," he said with a snap, standing up and striking a contemplative pose, a single forefinger against his lips. Without warning the teen reared back and delivered a vicious backhanded slap to the girl's gagged mouth. "That's for making me waste a whole week of my life on you!"

Mimi reeled from the blow, and would have fallen out of the chair had the wires that bound her not held her upright. Then she bowed her head and started to sob silently, tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks. "Oh, now don't do that," Roan leered tauntingly as he slowly and deliberately popped the top two buttons off of the girl's shirt with his fingers. "Don't you still want to be with me?"

Mimi shook her head, twisting desperately to keep him from opening her shirt any further. Roan smirked. "Oh come now… you know you want me…"

"Mmph!" replied Mimi furiously. Then a curious, random thought entered her head. _God, I slapped Izzy. He was trying to save me from this… and I hit him._

"Enough," whispered a voice from behind the girl's back. A filthy odor filled her nose as a figure cloaked from head to toe in black came into the field of her vision, brushing the strong young man away.

The creature was limping heavily, almost dragging his left leg along behind him. He was hunched over, and every now and then gave a muffled cough. She could see a pair of yellow eyes gleaming out at her from the depths of the black hood, then a flash of white teeth as well. "Yes. Sincerity, purity. This is the first." And the black cloak fell from his shoulders to the floor.

Mimi screamed as best she could against the gag. Standing before her was some… thing… a creature of such hideousness that she could not have imagined existed. Pale, paper-thin flesh that was blackened in many areas as if seared by a great heat covered an ancient-looking frame. A pair of frail, feathered wings drooped limply from the creature's shoulders, and green puss oozed from sores all over his body, particularly his face. The hair on the creature's head was wispy, dirty and all but gone in several spots. "Not a pretty sight, am I?" he hissed, leaning over the girl. The stench of his breath was like rotten garbage, and she was just able to cling to consciousness.

"This is what the youngest of your friends have done to me. My companion... my lover... was injured in a manner quite similar to this, but their power also cast her from this world. And now, as a result of their actions, she is no more. So it only seems fitting that you, as their friend, provide me with the last joy that I will now ever know. With your help and the help of your friends I will return to the world of my birth, and there I will rule as a god."

The creature held out a hand that trembled with some sort of palsy. Into it Roan placed an exceptionally large, clear gem, and the creature continued to speak in his cold, analytical tone of voice. "You see, in order to battle the minions of my rival in that world, I need to replace the power that this broken body can no longer provide. Your virtue, combined with that of your friends, will provide me with that power."

Then the creature limped to the center of the room and placed the large gem on the plain-looking table resting there. "There is no question that she came to me willingly, of her own volition?" he asked Roan once again, his voice anxious for verification. The other tilted his head to the side in a lazy nod. "Very well," he continued, waving his hands back and forth alternately between Mimi and the gem. "Then let us begin."

Every muscle in Mimi's body contracted at once and caused the girl's body to arch in torturous agony, and again the wires that bound her to the chair were the only thing that kept her upright. She longed desperately to pass out as pain that she had never experienced before racked her body, only to find out that she remained regrettably both conscious and alert. Now she became vaguely aware that a thin trail of light was stretching from her chest to the flickering light of the crystal on the table, and a single tear fell from her eye. _Izzy… I'm sorry…_


	4. The Unity of Wisdom

Chapter Three

****

Izzy crept quietly up to the double doors of the enormous, dark manor house on the hill. The evidence that he had garnered from his on-line search at Tai's apartment was not exactly what he'd call a sure thing, but there had been enough in the listing to make him suspect that this was the house where Roan Kuroda had fled to. And where he had taken Mimi.

The place even looked hateful. Clearly it had once been an elegant house, and perhaps it still appeared so in the daylight hours, but to Izzy's eyes at an hour fast approaching midnight it was simply horrific. Menacing, in an Alfred Hitchcock meets Dracula sort of way.

Then… confirmation? A small, pink hair ribbon lay just to the side of the walkway leading up to the front door. The boy picked it up to prevent it from being blown away by the wind, then examined it closely. Yes, this was certainly one of Mimi's. He could still envision the girl as she had sat next to him at the dinner, and could still hear her voice echoing in his head and smell her fragrant perfume. Even the memory brought a rush of heat to his face...

__

What is wrong with me? the boy demanded of himself. _It's not like I'm Tai, drooling like an idiot over Sora, or T.K., getting flustered and embarrassed whenever Kari plays with him around the rest of us. This is Mimi we're talking about. We've got absolutely nothing in common!_

Then the boy brought the notion up short. He was coming dangerously close to sounding as if he were trying to convince himself, and didn't have the time right now to come up with any other plausible explanation as to why he was there on his own. He could sweep questions of that nature to the back of his mind until later, but for now he had to determine how to proceed. He couldn't simply walk up to the front door and knock, then ask the dark teen to return Mimi to him. Plus there was the fact that, just before they went off together, getting away from Roan had seemed to be the last thing on the girl's mind.

With a derisive snort Izzy finally gave up and ordered his brain to stop thinking and to just act. That had always been hard for him, or so his friends said. Firmly setting his back he walked up to the front door, gave the knob a twist and pushed.

To the boy's utter amazement, the door eased open at his touch. Izzy peered into the narrow aperture between the doors, then cautiously stole inside when he was certain that no one was waiting for him just on the other side. To his surprise the interior of the house was a bright, immaculately furnished vision of luxury. His keen mind at once allowed him to assess the value of several of the pieces of artwork scattered about the room as very nearly priceless. How had Roan gone from the leader of a small band of misfits, living in a cave, to possessing wealth of this nature in those few short months that had passed?

The clever boy quickly reflected upon the size of the manor as he had seen it from the outside. It would take him hours to search the entire place room by room, and if he decided to take such a risk he was much more likely to run across Roan or someone else before he was Mimi. He didn't really even have a guess as to where to begin looking for the girl.

Scattered thoughts started flitting through his brain as he turned the matter over in his head once again. Just what _did _he plan on doing when he did find Mimi, or Roan, or worse yet, both of them? Was he being brave? Or just foolish? There had really been no reason to go without the others… but for some reason _he _wanted to be the one to rescue Mimi from whatever it was that Roan had planned for her. And he wanted to do it alone.

Two pairs of eyes were watching the boy from a concealed doorway just down the hall from where he waited, considering his choices. "I told you _one _at a time!" a voice whispered, sounding at once both supremely powerful and completely exhausted in the same breath.

"So? We're done with the girl and he _was _the second one that you wanted. Why not just take him now and do him next?"

"Fool! It was only sheer, idiotic luck that it was he that came. And I need a considerable amount of rest before I can even think about drawing the human soul from his body to place it with the girl's. You can't have any idea how much effort that takes."

Roan's eyes briefly went from the boy to the dark angel and back again. He was well content to be merely the muscle in this venture and to allow the other to do most of the scheming. A sinister smirk appeared on his lips he cracked his knuckles and stepped out from his hiding place. "But he _did _come here on his own. So I can be as rough with him as I want, right?"

The eyes of the angel narrowed on the boy. He knew well of the human's affection for causing pain among others of his race, and had seen it practiced on occasions that could not be easily counted. "Do _not _kill him, Roan. If you do I shall be quite... upset."

*****

Matt looked up, startled, as a quiet voice from the lips of another tickled his ear. He had fallen asleep on Tai's couch well after midnight, even after promising himself that he would wait for the resolution of the talk that his girlfriend was having with his little brother. "Shh," Rio whispered, pressing a calming finger to his lips. Matt gave the digit a kiss as he looked up at the girl. "Well?" he asked nervously.

The girl gave a brief, sad smile. That expression of hers always stopped just at the edge of breaking Matt's heart. It was as if though she could be somewhat happy for short periods of time, the ever-present sadness would always be there beneath it. "You were right, of course. That is a remarkable pair of children there, Matt. Not once did either of them hold against me anything that I had done. Even after what I had tried to do to T.K.--"

Matt interrupted her with a frown. He had forgiven the girl her attempt on his brother's life (after her tearful explanation he could hardly have done less) but he still implored her not to speak of it again. Rio nodded, knowing the reason. She paused for a moment, also looking grim. "I should go. Your friend's parents do not know me. I shouldn't stay here tonight."

Matt grabbed the girl and pulled her down until she was lying on the couch beside him. "Tai's parents called. They're staying at a hotel downtown tonight… some convention or other. And Tai said that if T.K. and Kari trusted you, he couldn't do any less. Please… stay." The words were soft, and like another balm to her tortured soul.

Rio nodded and sighed as she leaned her head against Matt's slender frame. She could feel his heart beating against the inside of his chest. Finally she had found love; a clean, true love, with someone that she inherently knew would never hurt her. The tenderness with which he treated her was like that which she had seen him only display around his brother before. So careful, so loving…

Matt's eyes blinked open from the momentary bliss that he had been dwelling in. "Wait a minute. If you guys are done talking, why aren't they out here yet?"

"I think that they were tired. They said they were going to sleep."

"Oh," Matt nodded, yawning. "That sounds like a very good… WHAT?"

"Sit down," Rio ordered, grabbing his arm and pulling him back to the couch. "Your brother said to give you a message. He said not to worry, that he has every intention of keeping his promise to you. And something else…"

"What?" Matt replied nervously.

"Oh yes. He said that, this time, he promised to keep his shirt on."

Matt's face broke into a grin, understanding the reference where no one else but Kari or T.K. would. Of course he trusted his little brother. The love that the two youngest shared was the most pure that he had ever seen, almost transcending the need for physical expressions of it. Almost.

Rio looked into the boy's eyes. She also had seen that between the younger children, but couldn't help taking advantage of Matt's evident unease about them. She forced a small frown as she stared into his eyes. "Of course, he made no promise about her shirt…"

The girl was forced to latch onto the boy's frame tightly to prevent him from bolting to the children's room.

*****

Sora awoke, bleary eyed and cranky early the next morning. The night had not been a good one, and her fitful sleep had been interrupted several times by horrific nightmares. Just after arriving home she had received a frantic phone call from Tai, telling her that Mimi's mystery lover was, of all people, Roan Kuroda. The same Roan that had tried to kill the five of them some months ago. And though Izzy and T.K. had tried to prevent the girl from going with the older boy, she had evidently made it quite clear that she wanted to be with him. And in a remarkable (and quite upsetting) coincidence, the others had also met Matt's new girlfriend… Roan's sister Rio.

And now someone was incessantly pressing the buzzer on the door to her apartment, and her mother, already having left for work, was not there to answer it. "All right, all right," she muttered, dragging herself out of bed and towards the front door. When she finally reached it she fumbled once with the knob and flung it open. "What?" she snapped with a aggravated glare.

"Ah!" a startled and pale young man shouted in response. With a trembling hand he held out a small slip of paper to her. "S…sign here, p…please."

She did so with annoyance, then snatched away the envelope that the other offered her. Quickly she tore it open and scanned the note inside as the frightened courier dashed off in the opposite direction.

Sora's mouth dropped open, horrified at what the letter said. A second time she read the short note, taking it slowly to make certain that she had not misunderstood what was written there. "No… Izzy," she whispered fearfully, then rushed inside to call Tai.

__

Sora,

As you must know by now, Mimi has been taken by Roan. If you're reading this and I have not called you to tell you to ignore it, it means that I have, too. Please tell the others how sorry I am for having tried to do this without all the rest you. You know the reason.

Izzy

*****

Izzy slowly returned to consciousness some time later, and the boy raised his head from his chest to relieve some of the pressure that had been building in his neck from having been bound in the same position for some hours. His left eye was swollen shut, but he was able to scan the room that he was in with just the right.

__

"You stupid, stupid child!" Roan shouted as he repeatedly smashed his fist into Izzy's face. "You think you love her? By the time I'm done with you, I promise, you'll be ready to rip her heart out!"

It had been just after that dire threat that Izzy had thankfully lost consciousness. Even now he could feel the blood crusted on his chin, blood that had poured freely from his nose and lip after the vicious beating that Roan had meted out upon his body. He had fought bravely, even beyond what he had thought were his normal abilities, but he was simply no match for the much older and considerably stronger teen.

Izzy struggled against the wires that bound him against an uncomfortable wooden chair, then stopped as the wiggling only made the wires cut deeper into his flesh and cause him more pain. The room was extremely dark, with only a dim, very faint light in the center of the room to illuminate it. He had no idea even if it were daytime or night. Then, as his eyes adjusted, he caught a very brief glance of another figure, bound as he was, in a chair opposite his.

__

Mimi? he thought as he peered at the figure. Yes, it was her. He could tell for certain because for some reason the light coming from the table in the room continued to grow as he stared. "Mimi!" he whispered urgently.

The girl gave no response.

"Mimi!" Izzy peered at her, concerned. The girl's chin was resting on her chest, making the boy certain the she was either asleep or unconscious. A rag was stuffed in her mouth, apparently to stifle any screams that the girl might have made. "Mimi!"

"Ah, so you did finally decide to wake up!" Roan circled around to the front of Izzy and stood there, glaring at him arrogantly. With a sneer he leaned over and peered closely at the boy. "A face not even a mother could love. Or recognize at this point." The dark teen's hand snapped forward and clasped Izzy's jaw in a vice-like grip, turning it from side to side.

Izzy struggled to resist, but Roan's strength was far superior to his own. The teen peered at the door through which he had just entered, as if waiting for someone. Then he leaned over and whispered in the boy's ear. "You know, love doesn't really exist. All that truly exists is lust. Sweet, exotic lust. Love, the kind that they tell you about in stories when you're a child, is a lie. Hatred sweeps it away with ease. Watch, and I'll prove it to you. Look at her!"

Roan's powerful hand forced Izzy's face towards Mimi's still figure, and with his other hand he withdrew the crest of Hatred from his breast pocket. "You think you love her? I'd bet all the wealth I have that in ten seconds, if I freed you, you'd go over there and kill her with your bare hands!"

With that pronouncement Roan's crest started to shimmer, and the strange aura engulfed Izzy's face and echoed in his eyes as the teen held the item in front of him. The young boy felt a rage growing inside of him, and desperately closed his one good eye against the crimson glare of the crest. But trying to shut out the feeling didn't help, and in seconds he was seething against his bonds, his bound hands tightening into claws…

"What are you doing?"

Roan snatched the crest away and released Izzy's jaw, allowing the boy's head to sag to his chest. "Stop it!" the mysterious voice commanded. "I don't want him to hate her! They must join together in order to give me what I want."

Roan glared furiously at the figure behind Izzy, then reluctantly obeyed the order and moved away from the boy. Within seconds a cloaked figure took Roan's place in front of him. All that Izzy could discern of his features were a pair of yellow, glowing eyes deep within the folds of a black hood. These eyes studied him for a moment, and then the figure spoke with a rasping voice. "Well, child… It appears that I have been misinformed about you. It had been my understanding that you were the coward, the apathetic one in the group. Yet now I smell the taint of courage, of love on you. How… fascinating."

Izzy stared at the creature. His head ached and his throat burned with thirst, but the glare was nonetheless defiant. "I know what you are," he challenged.

The other managed to sound surprised, chuckling his response. "Really? And what am I?"

The auburn-haired boy tried to shrug off the lethargic feeling that he knew was artificial, but still it seeped into his body from the creature's presence. "You are Despair." The boy forced a taunting smile. "You know that you can't win, can't beat all of us. Sooner or later you'll have to face Kari and T.K., and they'll do to you exactly what they did to Darkness."

The creature's eyes widened and his lips twitched once before breaking into a feral grimace. Then the angel reared his head back and sounded a maniacal scream, tearing his cloak from his body and standing before Izzy in all his horrid nakedness. The boy was appalled at the sight, but had sufficiently disciplined his mind to maintain a neutral expression. This only appeared to infuriate the angel further, as was Izzy's intent.

Then the scream ended, and Despair looked down at the child before him. "You came to save her?" it hissed angrily. Without awaiting an answer it continued, "Then I shall send you to where she is!"

Izzy closed his eyes and bowed his head, waiting for the blow that would end his life and send him to Mimi's side. _Maybe then I'll be able to make sense of all this. Maybe then I'll be able to tell her how I really feel..._

Again the creature's roaring filled his ears, and he felt a pain unlike any that he had ever known before. But it was not the pain of a physical blow, and instead felt as if a giant needle had punctured his brain and was slowly draining the life from his body. He heard Roan give an evil cackle, then everything went dark for the hero of knowledge. The boy never even felt his chin hit his chest.

*****

__

Izzy? … … Izzy?

Mimi? Is that you?

Izzy… please. I'm so cold.

The boy gladly allowed the spark of life that was his soul to intertwine with the girl's, bringing warmth and happiness to each of them. Finally free from pain, from worries and expectations and away from the eyes of his friends, he was to be allowed to let his soul express what needed to be said. _"Mimi? I've wanted to tell you so much…"_

"You don't have to. I know." The girl sounded so tired, so fearful.

__

"I do _have to." _It was so easy here. _"Mimi? I love you."_

*****

"What does he mean, '_You_ know why.'?" Tai snapped irritably to the girl sitting in his lap in the back seat of an extremely crowded taxi.

Sora didn't answer, only looked across past Rio to Kari, who shrugged a response. Boys were so stupid sometimes.

Rio looked back at Matt. "You know, for the situation that your friends are in you all seem remarkably calm." She glanced at Tai, who was still seething as he angrily reread the short note that Izzy had sent, a note which ended in a listing of the address where the boy had gone. "Well, most of you seem pretty calm, anyway," she amended.

"Don't worry about Tai," replied Matt, smirking at his friend. "He's sort of the one that we've all designated to throw a fit when we get bad news."

"But the rest of you…?"

Kari glanced at the girl. "It may sound silly, but we've all been through this before so many times it almost feels like we're becoming used to it.

T.K. gave his beloved a smile. "Yeah. It always seems like every time that we all get together that _somebody _is in desperate need of help, and we're always the ones that end up saving the day."

"Can't you be serious?" Kari asked him.

The young boy grinned. "I _am _being serious."

Kari tried to frown, but the look wouldn't stay on her face. Instead she leaned back and kissed the boy on the tip of the nose. "Oh, come on you two!" Tai grumbled, crumpling up Izzy's note into a ball and tossing it in their direction. T.K. blushed.

"All right, kids, this is it," the burly man at the wheel of the cab announced. At once six pairs of eyes looked out the window.

"Figures," Matt murmured.

"Roan never did anything small," Rio replied.

"Or tastefully," finished Sora, her voice daunted.

*****

Roan stared out the window, and counted the figures stepping out of the cab. _Six. Wonderful. All of the rest of them followed him here._

He stepped back and closed the curtain, then walked slowly back to the room where the two captives were being held. His master had just completed the transference of the boy Izzy's soul to the crystal, and was now feverishly trying to control the power that he had harvested from the two. This was certain to upset the plans of the fallen angel.

"Master?" he whispered upon entering the room.

The creature gasped with fatigue. "What?"

"The others are here."

Despair's thin brows furrowed. "All of them?"

Roan nodded. "A car has just dropped the six of them off out front."

"The youngest two as well?"

"It was hard to discern individuals from this distance, but the boy at least was there. It's almost impossible to miss that hat. I can only assume the one holding his hand was the girl."

The angel swallowed, and stooped to pick up his cloak. He looked at the shimmering pendant clasped in his hand, a pendant which echoed the light from the crystal in the center of the room. "We're leaving. Meet me in my study."

Roan was aghast. "No! You said that you wanted two of those before we left,' he shouted, pointing to the pendant.

The angel grimaced. "Ideally, yes. But I, for one, am not so foolish as to try to go against all six of them together. The babes already have awakened their power, rendering both yours and mine useless against them. Will you wait here to find out if their leader and his bitch can rouse theirs as well? I certainly will not."

"But my revenge! You promised me revenge!"

The angel stopped his march from the room, his back still to the other. "If you wish to stay and fight them, by all means do so. I now control the power of the unity of wisdom, and so should be able to establish my rule over my homeland, so I am leaving. With nothing to sustain their bodies, those two that I have trapped will eventually die and the unity will cease to exist. I must be in control by the time that happens. You are welcome to join me, but if not, then I will bid you farewell." And without awaiting a response the angel left the room on the way to his study where the gate that he had constructed awaited him.

Roan was seething. His cared not one bit for the plans of the angel. It mattered little to him which dark faction controlled the digital realm. But he _had _to have his revenge. Against their leader Tai if none of the others. That child had almost single-handedly destroyed his plans for a conquest of his own, and now was forcing him to leave a life in the lap of luxury for one in a strange land where humans were far in the minority.

Roan sneered, running a hand through his fear-bleached hair. With a calculated nod he again cracked his knuckles and sat down on a chair with his captives, pulling a long knife from under his coat. He _would _have his revenge…


	5. A Sin of the Past

Chapter Four

The fallen angel, still covered in his cumbersome black cloak, clutched the brightly glowing pendant in his fist as he stared at the sealed portal before him. "Open," he whispered impatiently, gesturing at it with his free hand. Through that door awaited his kingdom, just waiting to fall into his waiting grasp. At his back was pain, and suffering... and death anew. It was maddening. "_Open_, damn you!"

Then the creature almost sighed with relief as a faint, glowing crease split the center of the gate from top to bottom, and slowly... slowly but certainly the two halves of the barrier started to separate. The jewel that he held, the one which was being powered by the souls of the two children which he and Roan had captured gave him strength, a strength which he had not known since the two youngest of the eight had defeated him all those months ago. And now, Roan had informed him that those same two were on their way into his house.

The angel felt, surprisingly, a trace of sadness at having lost the services of the dark teen Roan. There had been one human that he could respect… primarily for his utter lack of humanity. Over the last half year he had seen the boy toy with and destroy the lives and emotions of the numerous young women that he'd seduced. Had seen him wield his power of hate with a deviousness that any demon would have been proud of. But the boy had chosen to stay behind as the angel left for the portal, choosing revenge over the chance to rule in the other world.

Against any other humans the angel would have stayed as well. These creatures were such a weak and ineffectual race. But against the group that was coming to rescue the captives now he would not dare. Not against those six. His body was continually suffused by pain, and now gave an unwilling shudder as he could again feel the holy approach of the Unity of Faith. Worse still was the possibility that their leader and his woman might stumble upon the key to their power as well.

Finally, mercifully, the gateway opened enough for him to enter through on his way back to the digital world. The "Kaiser" as he called himself was already firmly in command there, but with his own power being girded by the Unity of Wisdom the angel of Despair was certain that he, soon, would be firmly entrenched as the ruler of that land.

*****

"Remember, he's got to see you to use the crest against you," Rio warned the others. Sora gave a nod as she slowly followed Kari and T.K. into the house. The girl had told Matt and Tai the same thing seconds ago as the boys had led the way into the mansion, and the message was meaningless for the two youngest. Roan's power, or any of the crests of corruption for that matter, had never affected either of them.

Matt had initially wanted Rio to stay outside as the five of them confronted Roan. The girl was terrified of her older brother, and only Matt knew why. The tales that she had told him of their life together, tales of hideous crimes and depraved, incestuous rape, had horrified even the normally stoic boy. Matt had seethed with anger at the thought of the Roan again laying his hands on her, and wanted nothing more than to kill the other boy with his bare hands. The pale girl had insisted, however, on being with them. She knew Roan's insane mind better than any of them, and knew exactly what surprises he could have for them if they were not prepared.

The front door slammed shut behind them, and Sora gave a startled shout. The other five turned their eyes towards her. "Sorry" she murmured.

Now a vague, uneasy feeling was starting to form in the pit of T.K.'s stomach; something that he had not felt for some… time. Uncertain as to its origin, he glanced over at Kari, who nodded a response. It was an uncomfortably familiar feeling, one that made them each-- "Tai!" whispered the younger boy.

"Not now, T.K.!" snapped the other in return, glancing nervously about the enormous main hallway. _How on earth are we supposed to search this entire place?_

"Yes, Tai, now," his sister insisted. The boy turned his brown eyes on her. "What?" he demanded.

Then Matt turned as well, and saw the faint glimmer of golden light beneath T.K.'s shirt that signified the crest of Hope's opposition to... something. "T.K.?"

"Matt… it's the other angel. I'm sure of it."

Matt frowned, his teeth clamping down on his lower lip. "You absolutely certain, squirt?"

The younger boy hesitated, then nodded. And he _wished _that Matt would quit calling him that. When it came right down to it, he wasn't much shorter than his older brother was now… _but then, I'd probably miss it if he did stop, _the boy finished to himself.

Matt stopped Tai with a hand on his shoulder. "Tai, wait. If we're really going to do this, then you need to let the two of them go first," he said with a sideways nod at the pair.

The brown-haired boy's jaw dropped. "You're insane," he replied.

"No, I'm not. And I trust them. If the other angel is here and still has his powers, then you're just throwing our lives away if you don't let them."

"Matt--"

"Tai!" Sora interrupted. "We haven't got time for this. Mimi and Izzy are in trouble." She looked at the two youngest, who watched the argument with interest. "Do it," she instructed, gesturing at the pair.

T.K. nodded once and took his shimmering crest from under his shirt. Kari moved her own, normally bound tightly to her wrist, into the palm of her left hand. Then the pair clasped hands and tightly pressed the holy relics together, and once again the pink nimbus of the Unity of Faith swirled into existence.

Rio felt an affirming warmth course through her body as the aura enveloped the rest of the group. She had known that she loved Matt before, but a new surge of emotion that was lovely and completely unexpected threatened to overwhelm her as she was caught in that light. Try as she might, she could no longer feel frightened at the thought of confronting her older brother. All that mattered in that moment was the extreme love that she felt for her new friends… and particularly for the lanky, blond-haired boy at her side.

The rest of the group also paused for a moment to drink in the heavenly glow. They had all experienced it before, but outside of the youngest pair had never done so while standing next to one to whom they had freely committed their love. "Okay, go ahead," Tai indicated to the two, grinning like an idiot as he offered his hand to Sora.

T.K. and Kari led the group down the hallway, holding the beacon of the light in front of them like a shield against the darkness.

"God knows, he's waiting for us behind one of these doors with a gun or something," Matt murmured.

Rio shook her head. "Not Roan. Not with a gun. He's scared to death of them."

"Ooh, now what have we here?" a mocking voice sounded from the top of a nearby stairwell. There was a momentary pause as Roan looked down on the group and pretended to count, then brought his hands to his cheeks in mock dismay. "Six? Six of you against one of me? Oh dear, what's a poor fellow like myself supposed to do?" Tai and Matt both glared at the speaker and moved to the front of the group, each having their own separate reasons for despising Roan.

The other raised his hands as if in surrender, but even at that distance the group could see the crimson light from the crest of Hate dangling from his fingers. It was not focused on them in its entirety, not yet, but Roan was clearly ready to spring the trap at any moment.

Tai was seething, but managed to keep him anger mostly in check. "Give up, Roan," he demanded. "What have you done with Izzy and Mimi?"

The other opened his mouth to retort, but a soft voice from behind Tai's back stopped his words, confounding him. "Yes, brother. What have you done with them?" And the dark-haired speaker stepped forward from behind Tai and stood at Matt's side, taking his hand in her own.

Roan's mouth fell open, and for the very first time, five of the six had a glimpse of the older teen when he was not convinced that he was firmly in control of the situation. "R… Rio?" he stuttered, a look of astonishment in his dark eyes.

"What do you want with those two, brother?" Roan was slack-jawed, and appeared as though he did not even hear the question. Instead he only continued to stare at his younger sister, whom he had thought lost over half a year ago. "Come now, _brother,_" she insisted. "There have never been any secrets between us, have there?" Her eyes were cold as she watched the other, and the tone of her words was quite contrary to what she'd said.

Roan finally seemed to gather his wits, and stared hatefully at the bond between his sister and Matt. His lips curled into an ugly sneer at the pair. "Tell me, _sister_. Is he as good as I was? Do you ever give that delightful, musical scream for him like you once did for me?"

"Bastard!" screamed Matt, and Tai and T.K. were forced to each grab one of the boy's arms to keep him from rushing at the white-haired teen, the younger boy breaking his connection with Kari to do so.

"Did she tell you that as well?" the other returned casually and with a disdainful shake of his head. "Dear me, Rio, what secrets of ours you're betraying." Then a dangerous glint appeared in his eyes as he watched the boy struggle against his confinement. Before he had been primarily interested in revenge against their leader, Tai. But now, seeing his sister with a romantic attachment to another of that group, his priorities changed. "Through that doorway on your left," he said to Tai, indicating a very large door atop another staircase at the opposite end of the hall, "my partner is just now making his getaway with the… well, with the essence of life that he has stolen from each of your two friends. If you hurry, you just might catch him."

"You're lying!" shouted Sora.

Rio peered closely at her brother. "No, he's not," she murmured.

"Matt! Come on!" Tai insisted, pulling frantically against Matt's arm. The blond boy ignored his friend, a vein sticking out on his forehead as he strained against the grip of the boys who were holding him back.

Roan responded with an evil chuckle deep within his throat. "It's your choice, really. Me, or your friends?"

"Tai, now!" Sora said insistently.

"Oh, damn!" shouted the brown-haired boy, at once releasing his hold on Matt and dashing, Sora close on his heels, to the doorway that their enemy had indicated.

T.K. was left holding onto Matt's arm alone, but the younger boy was not enough to restrain the insane fury of his older brother, and tumbled to the ground as Matt pulled away and darted to the stairs which led to Roan. "Matt!" the younger boy and Rio shouted at once.

"Tai, stop!" insisted Kari, dashing after her own older brother.

T.K. was torn, looking one moment after his brother and the second after his best friend. After a moment's hesitation in which his soul felt ripped in half, he dashed after Kari. Matt, hopefully, could be counted on to take care of himself. But he would be needed with Kari if they were again to face the angel of Despair. "Kari, wait!" he shouted at her back as she disappeared through the doorway in pursuit of Tai and Sora.

But the hesitation had cost him greatly.

T.K. reached the entrance to the library and threw it open, huffing after having followed Kari up the flight of stairs, only to see the girl vanish into a rapidly closing portal; a portal not unlike the one that they had used years before in pursuit of Myotismon. The young boy flung himself desperately after the brown-haired girl but, like Tai years earlier, only succeeded in colliding with the solid metal doors as the gateway was sealed. "No!" the boy shouted, falling to his knees and pounding furiously on the cold, uncaring metal.

"Kari…" he whispered sadly.

*****

__

"Izzy? What is this place?" murmured one half of the glowing sphere of light that resided both within the crystal at the mansion and within the talisman held by Despair.

"I'm afraid that there's too little information for me to make an accurate assessment at this point," the other replied.

Mimi felt suffused with warmth as the boy spoke, the boy who only moments earlier had confessed his love for her. She, oddly enough, had not been surprised to hear the words. Though all the time that they had known each other they had often enough come close to driving one another insane, she felt exceptionally intimate with the intellectual boy. And now… it was though they were bound together in some way. She could not possibly have felt any closer to him. She now existed inside him, as he existed inside her.

Izzy was similarly ecstatic, new emotions that he had held in check for so long running unhindered through his incorporeal existence. Yes, he did love her. Loved her flightiness, her eccentricity, everything about her that he could never be. Someone had once said that opposites truly did attract, and though Izzy had always recognized that truth in the laws of nature, never once had it entered his thoughts as it pertained to the laws of the human heart.

Then, unexpectedly, a new emotion flooded Izzy's senses, intruding on his private thought of affection for the girl who shared his existence now. Danger. Somehow, some way, in this place where they now were there was danger. An almost overwhelming need to protect Mimi arose out of his soul, and in that place where the two now existed, that need revealed itself as an almost blinding golden aura. And with a brief flash of that golden nimbus, the danger passed.

"Izzy? What… what was that?" the girl murmured nervously.

The boy would have frowned had he still had lips as he spoke the words that he was always so reluctant to say. "I don't know, Mimi." He allowed his half of the unity to envelop hers protectively. "I really don't know."

*****

The angel of Despair stood over the body of the Digimon that had dared oppose him, then watched as it dissipated into minute bits of data and flowed away. He had overdone it, turning the full power of the Unity of Wisdom against the little creature that had claimed servitude to the "Digital Emperor" when just a bit less would have overwhelmed it and turned it to serving him. The angel shrugged. Some experimentation _would _be necessary before he could learn to use the power of his weapon to destroy or convert as he saw fit.

He smiled at the ease with which he had won the encounter. The simple indication of danger that he had thrown at the souls confined within the jewel had caused them to unleash a devastating amount of power at his opponent. This would be better than he had hoped. Forget being a ruler. With power such as this, eventually, he would be a god here.

Now he only wished that he had constructed the gate to move him closer to the civilized parts of the Digital world, instead of to the barren wasteland. _But, better to be safe than sorry,_ he mused.

After all, the children could not know how to free their friends, and he had a significant amount of time before their mortal bodies failed from physical limitations.

*****

Tai, Sora, and finally Kari tumbled to the sandy ground moments after having leapt through the dimensional portal. The boy glanced about once, then turned to count heads. He shook his own sadly at seeing the companions that they were missing. He had known that Matt's fury would compel him after Roan, but had hoped that T.K. at least would have been with them. Without both the younger boy, their chances against the dark angel of Despair were admittedly slim.

Kari, too, stood looking at the doorway. "Oh T.K. …" she whispered sadly, hoping that he would have been able to catch up with her in time.

Tai moved to her side and placed an arm around his sister. "Don't worry about him, Kari," the older boy said. "Matt and T.K. can take care of themselves. It'd be better at this point to start worrying about us." He paused for a moment, looking around. The area in which they had landed was hot and barren, bereft of any redeeming qualities. Oppressive to both the eyes and the soul. "I suppose we're back in the digital world."

Sora exhaled loudly. "But which part? None of this looks at all familiar to me. And which way do we go from here? And when we catch up with the angel, how-"

"Sora," Tai interrupted. He was nervous as well, but had accepted a long time ago that, as their leader, he was the one who was supposed to calm the others by taking everything on himself. "I don't know where we are. But if Roan was right, and the angel does have Mimi and Izzy, then we've got to go after him." His eyes fell on a trail of footprints in the sand, stretching off into the distance. "And _that _is which way we go from here."

*****

"Come out, Roan!" Matt roared with just a trace of insanity in his voice. The older teen had taken to his heels as Matt had charged up the stairs at him, and now the blond-haired boy seethed as he looked at a long hallway filled with innumerable doors. "Come back and fight!"

Rio looked sadly at the boy. Once again Roan was causing her soul pain, now vicariously through Matt. She knew that her brother was a terribly sadist, whose greatest delight had always been in bringing pain to anyone and everything that he could. And as calculating as his evil mind was, she was certain that he knew just how much pain he was causing the both of them now.

She had made a mistake by telling Matt some of the things that her brother had done to her in the times that they were still together. But at the time she had been desperate to win the trust and forgiveness of the boy, frantic to explain how Roan's threats alone had coerced her into her own monstrous acts. She had no idea that she would fall this deeply in love with the rebellious boy, nor that he could be so kind or become so enraged at the one who had hurt her that deeply.

Matt was still frantic in his search, throwing open doors randomly and calling for the older teen, when finally he came to a door which would not open. Again Matt turned the handle, throwing his lean body against the door again and again. "Roan!" he screamed.

"Matt, stop!" Rio insisted. "You'll hurt yourself." The boy ignored her, continuing to ram the door with his shoulder, apparently with the mindset that either it or he would end up broken before he stopped. The girl reached out a trembling hand to stop him, when suddenly she felt a familiar iciness creep up her spine. She tried to move away, but a fraction of a second later she was pulled backwards by her hair and felt the cold steel of Roan's dagger against her throat.

"Hello again, Rio," a familiar, hateful voice whispered into her ear.

"Matt," the girl whispered, her lips trembling uncontrollably.

The boy must have heard the fear in her voice, for at once he stopped the battering and turned in her direction. He took a step forward, seeing Roan at her back, but stopped as the older teen angled his long knife at her throat. "That's right, Matt," the deranged teen with the bleached-white hair whispered at him. "Once again, she's mine. Mine to play with, to do with as I will. Did she tell you how she enjoyed me? How many times we kept each other warm on those cold, cold nights in the mountains?" He paused, and turned his eyes to his sister. "Did you tell him? How you said that no one could ever be better than me?"

Matt's teeth clamped down on his lip. He could feel his muscles tightening and his body fill with rage as he watched the pair, powerless to help. He could taste blood in his mouth as his teeth punctured his lip, helplessly watching the girl who he had once hated but had grown to love as she bowed her head in surrender. "Roan," he hissed, his blue eyes narrowing dangerously. "If you hurt her, I swear to God…"

"Me? Hurt her? Oh no, no, no, Matt. I think that you misunderstand the crux of this situation. I'm not going to hurt her at all." The teen pulled his other hand from behind the girl's back, and Matt could again see the crimson crest of Hatred shimmering in his clenched fist. He smiled evilly. "You are..."


	6. The Unity of Conviction

Chapter Five

Matt was horrified as he grasped the meaning of the white-haired teen's words. "I… I won't," he whispered quietly, though certainly loud enough for the other two to hear. Slowly he backed away, his nervous eyes on the blade at Rio's throat and the even more dangerous crest in Roan's clenched fist. If this had been a trap, it had certainly turned out to be an effective one.

"Now stop right there, Matt," droned Roan slowly, making a threatening motion with the knife at his sister's throat. "I'm not so overly fond of her that I won't spill out her life right here on this floor if you don't stay to participate."

The blond boy froze, completely helpless to act. He had no doubt that Roan would do as he threatened, but was justifiably horrified at what the other could cause him to do to Rio by using the Crest of Hate against him. As strong as Matt hoped that he could be, he was well aware that he simply would not be able to keep from harming Rio if Roan so wished it.

"Roan," Rio whispered to her brother, seeking desperately to forestall whatever it was that he was planning. "Roan, please. Don't do this."

"Please? Did you just say, 'please'?" And with those hesitant, derisive words still in the air the older boy grabbed his sister's dark hair and yanked her head back, at the same time keeping his keen blade at her neck. Rio yelped a scream, then started to sob quietly as her captor faced off against her beloved Matt. Even from this distance she could see the blond-haired boy's hands balling into angry fists.

__

No... anything but that. Let me die first. Let Roan extinguish what little flickering joy of life he's left me, but don't let him do it with Matt's hands. My soul will sink to Hell in an instant...

"And now," the teen said, his dark eyes flashing with amusement. "And now the fun begins." And his eyes rolled back into their sockets as he focused his concentration on binding the angry soul of his crimson crest to the mind of the blond-haired boy opposite him.

*****

T.K. stared sorrowfully at the door which Kari and the others had just passed through for another minute or so, then rose to his feet and turned to leave. He could only pray at this point that Tai and Sora could keep Kari safe. He wouldn't have willingly made that sacred trust to anyone, even to those two, but since he evidently had no choice in the matter…

Then, as his fingers came into contact with the knob on the door, the young boy's dejected eyes fell on a large book which rested on the desk opposite the portal. He glanced around, now taking the time to acknowledge the rest of the room instead of having his focus solely on the other's escape route. This was evidently a library or study of some sort. Books upon books were piled about the room, most of them looking very old and worn.

And then something, the boy wasn't sure exactly what, compelled him to go to the open book on the table. It was exceptionally large, and the pages within it were yellow and cracked with age. But T.K. frowned as he looked at the scrawled writing within. It was jumbled and entirely nonsensical to him, written in a language the he didn't even recognize, much less understand. Knowing that the book had been used by Despair, he doubted that it was even a human language. In fact, it was so utterly useless to him at the moment that he would have shrugged it off and have gone to find Matt if there had not been, quite prominent in the center of the page, the sigil of the Crest of Knowledge.

He flipped slowly backwards through each page, but found that he could read none of them. Of the infrequent diagrams and sketches he could fathom little more, but it was on these that his attention was focused. He leaned over the tome to get a closer look. That sign of the cross and two lines looked somewhat familiar. And that one between the sigils of Hope and Light. Did those marking mean that--

But just as he thought one of the diagrams was beginning to make sense to him, the boy gave a yelp of alarm and shoved himself away from the book, hand going instantly to his chest. A fierce, burning sensation had startled him from his concentration and pulled him rather convincingly back to himself. With a slight blush on his cheeks at having broken the eerie silence with his cry, T.K. glanced down at the area where he'd been singed. 

The boy reached beneath his shirt and once again produced the Crest of Hope. It was burning steadily with its golden light, and T.K. felt the familiar throbbing in his head that signified its desire to commune with him. Never before had the little relic showed such an urgency in attracting his attention, so he instantly closed his eyes and concentrated on the faint strumming noise in his head. He turned his head to the side and sunk deeper into the union. The Voice was there... but just so difficult to make out...

**__**

Stop guessing and let Us read Together...

And just as suddenly as it had been established, the bond was broken.

He blinked somewhat owlishly as the spirit left him. It was not what he'd been expecting. Always before when the Crest had joined with his mind, however briefly, it had been in regards to either Kari's well-being or his own. Now... _Us_ read?

The boy puzzled the demand out for a moment before inspiration struck. The light from the crest was still active and shimmering against his palm, and now he turned the golden glow upon the pages that he'd not been able to recognize before.

And as the crest's luminance washed over the page the boy again studied the letters... and this time they arranged themselves properly in his eyes, and he _understood _them. He started to read:

__

Know, beloved, that the power of these children is very great, as you can well understand. But what has escaped us is that it can become greater still. I have had time (too much time!) since being flung into this world by them_, and have thought on the matter. It is their moral love which can bind the virtues together, creating a power tenfold greater than that which they wield alone. The furious power that struck us down was the holy combination of Hope and Light: Faith._

But beloved, it had been given me to know how to extract that power from the children by harnessing their souls… or so I believe. Our Master still speaks to me here, but His voice is so very, very distant... And the noise... After having been struck by the Saber I shall hear the shout of the angelic hordes in my mind evermore. It is maddening.

But this shall be your salvation, not my own, for they are beyond my reach. I believe that, if such power can be harvested from the children, it will more than supplement what you have lost to them.

Harness their power. Use it to return to our homeland, in memory of me if nothing else. I have nothing here, save the creatures of this world to amuse myself with. But you… you have all the children there at your disposal. Find them. Take their strengths and yoke them together. Remember, as Hope and Light beget Faith, so too from Knowledge and Sincerity springs Wisdom. And then finally can Courage and Love together become Conviction.

Darkness, Everlast.

*****

"You cold, black-hearted bastard!" snarled Matt, as he felt the rage beginning to swell inside of him. But now, disturbingly, his hatred for Roan was starting to amble off to the back of his mind and was being replaced by an artificial fury directed at Rio. He knew it, realized it, and was certain that he was helpless to do anything about it.

"Did you just now come to that rather axiomatic conclusion, little boy?" The other's tone was arrogant, derisive, as if he would savor every delightful second of the younger teen's realization that he alone would eventually be the one to destroy Rio. With agonizing slowness Roan dug the point of his blade into the soft flesh of the girl's throat, a tiny drop of blood washing over the tip. "Remember, sticks and stones, Matt. _Sticks and stones_. I'll enjoy this, I think. And now it's time for you to... ooh--" The dark teen's sardonic words were cut off with a sudden moan as his dark eyes went vacant and he fell forward to his knees, releasing his grip on both Rio and his knife. The latter clattered loudly as it slid across the floor, stopping only when it collided with Matt's feet.

Rio turned, and looked up at her savior, as did Matt. There stood T.K. with a grim look in his eyes, holding the object with which he had just smashed Roan's skull.

It was a large, leather-bound book.

*****

The angel of Despair appeared troubled as he stood alone in the ruins of the Digimon village which he had just unintentionally razed. The bodies of those that he had vanquished had already dissolved, and now all that was left were the fires burning in what had been the dwelling places for those creatures.

A disturbing realization was just now occurring to the angel. He was proving unable to control the power of the Unity of Wisdom. Even the tiniest hint of danger that he was directing towards it was unleashing power of an unimaginable destructive force. He had thought that by lessening the threat, he could lessen the force that the souls confined therein were responding with. That was not proving to be the case.

__

What good will it do me to continue like this? the dark creature wondered. Virtually all of the evil Digimon had already cast their respective lots with the Emperor, and unless he could use the power of the pendant in his hand to convert them then he would have no followers, no one to reign over. If he could not control it then he would rule, yes, but would rule over a dead world, one that he himself would destroy.

Once again he thought of the boy, the keeper of Knowledge. This was his fault. If only his informants had been correct, if only the boy were as cold and uncaring as they had portrayed him to be, this would not be an issue. But the energy that he was expending to protect the girl bound with him, that energy which powered the gem, made it clear that whatever he had felt in the past, his love for her was all-consuming now.

Then the dark angel's eyes panned up, as something in the distance caught his eye. Creatures were approaching, and even at this distance, he knew that they were not Digimon. _Damn you a thousand times over, Roan! Could you not have kept them occupied for even a moment after I had left?_

The angel turned, but there was nowhere left for him to go, nowhere to hide. In his younger days he would have taken to the skies, but now his wings failed him as badly as the rest of his body. A feeling of stark terror arose in him, one that he had not had to deal with even when opposing the hundreds in the village that he had just taken. A terror that was caused by three young, human, children.

*****

__

Izzy felt drained, weakened, as though he had just taken part in a day-long battle. Wherever it was that he and Mimi had been sent, the threat of danger was all about them now. Izzy was continually steeling his soul to fight in whatever way that he could against whatever it was that was threatening the two of them, but whenever he prepared himself to fight, the golden nimbus again appeared and drove the danger away.

The girl who remained engulfed in his protective, incorporeal existence was his only means of support now. Every time that he expended the energy to keep them safe, she was there at his side to gird his strength with her love for him. The boy was certain that he would have failed long ago were it not for her.

"Izzy?" her tender voice echoed in his head, her spirit warming his with its embrace. "Please, Izzy, stop. You're hurting yourself."

The concern and emotion in her words once again renewed the strength of the Hero of Knowledge. How he wished, desperately wished at that moment that he could kiss her. The bond that they had been forced into was deeper than a simple meeting of the lips would be, but there was something special that he assigned to that gesture that he wanted to share with her. "No, Mimi. I'll be fine. Whatever happens, I swear, I'm going to be with you to protect you."

"Oh… Izzy… if I could right now, I swear I'd kiss you… well, either that or give you a good, quick kick in the butt for the stupid macho act!"

The young boy smiled to himself. The irregular and fervent outbursts of emotion were one of the things that he loved about her. One moment she could be so incredibly childish and selfish, and without pause could become more sage and discerning than anyone that he had ever met. When they had first met, those traits had served to confuse the boy more than anything, but now he found that they provided an air of mystery about her, something that the Hero of Knowledge found hard to resist.

Then, without warning, Izzy sensed the threat of danger surrounding them again. Only this time… there was something different. Whatever it was seemed less threatening than it did… it was hard to describe. Concerned, perhaps? Worried?

*****

"I hope that's the last we see of that thing," T.K. muttered as he crushed Roan's Crest of Hatred underneath his heel, grinding it into tiny crimson shards.

Matt nodded as he looked down at the white-haired teen, unconscious at his feet. Then his eyes panned up to his little brother's face, so like his own, and the lanky boy embraced T.K. gratefully. "Thanks, squirt. Thanks a lot."

The younger boy blushed as he watched Rio study them, then felt just a trace of pity for the girl as he returned Matt's embrace. She had never known what it was like to have a brother that she cared for, or who cared for her. At that moment, T.K. realized all that he would have been missing if he didn't love Matt as much as he did, or if that love wasn't returned. "Matt," the younger boy whispered, giving a slight motion of his eyes towards Rio.

The older boy nodded once but did not leave his brother's arms, and instead motioned the girl over to share in the warm, familial embrace. The girl joined the pair, hesitantly at first, then happily as each brother put an arm about the dark-haired, pale girl. After a moment, T.K. was moved to see tears falling from the girl's brown eyes. "Thank you… thank both of you," she whispered fervently.

The three stayed like that for some time afterwards, then Matt looked down at the book that T.K. had clobbered Roan with. He nodded at it. "What's that?"

T.K. responded with a disingenuous smile. "A book."

Matt rolled his eyes. "And apparently a makeshift club, too," he replied sarcastically. "What's in it?"

T.K. looked grim. "It _was_ the other angel, Matt. He was here, and apparently whatever Darkness did to Kari when we were with the _a'ladon, _he's figured out a way to do it to Izzy and Mimi. He's using their souls to increase his power. Their bodies…" he paused, trying to get his bearings, "should be in that room over there." He pointed to the door that Matt had been trying to batter down earlier.

Rio frowned, then knelt by her brother and started searching through his rumpled clothes. Then she nodded with satisfaction as she pulled a set of keys from one of his pockets, went to the door and, after several attempts, found the correct one to open the lock.

"What do we do about him?" asked T.K., motioning towards Roan's limp form.

Matt bit his bottom lip. "Take him with us, I guess," he said, grabbing one of the teen's arms and indicating for T.K. to take the other. Together the brothers dragged his limp body into the room where the angel's book had indicated that they would find Izzy and Mimi.

The boys unceremoniously dumped the criminal in the corner of the room, then turned to their captive friends. "Oh my God! Izzy!" T.K. yelped, rushing to the red-haired boy's side.

Izzy's face was barely recognizable. His eyes were closed, but T.K. doubted that the boy could open them even if he were conscious as they appeared to be swollen shut. Blood encrusted the lower part of his face and neck and stained his clothes all the way down to his shoes. His left arm was twisted at an awkward angle and was bound against his body with a series of cruel looking wires, and there was a hideous purple bruise on his jaw.

Matt glanced from Izzy to Mimi and back again, the girl quite obviously injured but much less so than Izzy. Of course, that wasn't saying much. A thin current of light streamed from each of their chests to a large crystal in the center of the room, a crystal which glowed with a much greater light than either of the two beams could produce by itself.

"Matt, give me the knife," T.K. said. The older boy nodded and handed the blade to T.K., who started to saw away at the thin wires which bound Izzy to the chair. They were metallic, and reluctantly started to give way with a sharp, annoying _twang_.

"Rio. Go find a phone," Matt ordered. "There's got to be one in here somewhere. I want you to call--"

"An ambulance? A doctor?"

Matt looked at the pair of his friends, bound as they were. Who knew what taking them away from the crystal, as any doctor would insist on, would do to them. No. Now they needed someone with a knowledge of medicine, but also someone who understood of some of the less mundane problems that this was likely to entail. "No." He took a small card out of his wallet. "Call this number, and ask for Joe. Tell him… tell him a friend of Tentomon is in serious need of his help." Joe might not trust a stranger on the other end of the line calling him for aid, but the mention of Izzy's Digimon would certainly lend Rio credibility.

The girl looked confused, but did as the older boy bade. As T.K. continued to saw away at Izzy's bonds, Matt sat down on the floor and opened the large book that his brother had brought.

*****

The dark angel of Despair trembled as he looked at the three children who were facing him in the center of the burned-out village. The three, in turn, returned looks of disgust at the creature. Even Kari, who could never hate anyone, started at him with fury in her eyes at what he had just done to the village of innocent creatures.

"What have you done with Izzy and Mimi?" Tai shouted, and the fearsome creature actually seemed to cringe at the sound of his voice.

__

Wait… that voice. Now the angel looked closer at the three who faced him. The two girls… and the leader. The child of Hope was absent from their midst, and the Saber which haunted his every waking moment was _not _with them! With a flash of realization his fear vanished, and he held up the pendant which contained the Unity of Wisdom. "They're right here, boy," the creature hissed, a sneer appearing at the corner of his lips to match the evil in his voice. "Come and get them, if you think you can."

Tai focused on the shimmering pendant in the other's hand, confused. What was it that Roan had said? _Escaped with the life force of my friends._ Or something like that. Could the dark angel really have trapped their… their souls within that tiny gem? It seemed difficult to believe, but Tai had seen much, much stranger things in his short lifetime.

Sora froze. This was what it had come down to. They had caught up with the angel, but still had no way to fight with him. Indeed, they were in quite a bit more danger from him than he was from them. The girl stole a quick sideways glance at Tai. Hopefully he had formed a plan of some sort, but there was really no guessing what the impulsive boy might--

"Tai! No!"

In a flash Tai darted towards the hooded angel, heedlessly throwing his body at the creature's in an attempt to bring it to battle. Despair simply smiled, and traced a pattern in the air with the Unity of Wisdom, weaving together its power and his with the certain knowledge that he was safe from harm.

The angel's power, when it was unleashed, came accompanied by an earsplitting explosion and a flash of gray lightning. The bolt smashed violently into Tai's chest and hurled his limp body backwards and through the air, almost fifteen feet to land sprawled on the ground by the two girls. "Tai!" the pair screamed as one, dropping to their knees his side.

Tai's back arched with pain as he landed heavily on the ground, but then his eyes popped open with a great deal of surprise. That hadn't felt at all like he'd expected, and he wasn't even injured... much less dead. Being thrown that far and hitting the ground that hard had certainly hurt, but the gray bolt of lightning hadn't at all. It had been loud, bright... and almost completely innocuous. But still...

He looked up at the two girls kneeling over him, silently swearing at himself. This whole, stupid mess was his fault. He had known that he had to rescue Izzy and Mimi, even without a very good plan, but for him to have brought the girls with him… well, that was almost unforgivable. Even if Despair were only toying with them now, there would come a time when his amusement with them would end. And how to summon help here... now?

"Tai," Sora sobbed, throwing her arms around the boy and burying her face in his shoulder. Kari looked down at her older brother with those same, sad eyes that he was so used to.

The brown-haired boy rose to his seat and rubbed his chest, the pain from his collision with the ground still resonating throughout his body. "That was just a warning, child!" the angel called out to him, though its voice sounded somewhat unsettled. "With the power that your friends are giving me, I can destroy the three of you with just a simple wave of my hand!" And now slowly, slowly and purposefully, the dark angel started to undulate his hand to make patterns in the air.

*****

__

Izzy couldn't understand. Again had come the unrelenting sense that was telling him that he and Mimi were in great danger from an unseen assailant, yet now something in his own heart told him that the exact opposite was true. That remaining in this place, wherever it was, was the real danger, and that whatever he felt was threatening to the two of them was in fact quite the opposite.

"Izzy? Izzy, no more!" Mimi's words echoed in his thoughts, stopping the flood of power before it could be unleashed. "You feel it too! You've got to feel it. Whatever it is that's out there, we're not supposed to be fighting against it!"

"But… but Mimi? What if… what if we're wrong, and it really is _dangerous? It could… I mean, we could be--"_

Somehow the girl silenced the boy without saying a word. "Then let it come," she whispered. "I won't live with this fear anymore. I'm not afraid, Izzy, of whatever might happen. You're here with me, and that makes me brave enough to face whatever it is."

Her words emboldened the boy. If she felt that strongly, that courageous at his side, could he possibly feel less? Then the girl's spirit once again enveloped his, and the answer became a forgone conclusion. Of course he couldn't...

*****

The angel stopped, as he felt the power of wisdom withdrawing from his command. With alarm in his eyes he looked at the object in his fist, then shook it frantically. This... this was to be his salvation! She had promised him! He threw his mind into it once again. _Danger! Peril! Danger! _But even as he conjured up repeated, dreadful images of misery and terror for the two inside, the power inside remained vaporous and would not congeal in his hands.

__

The boy…

Despair looked up, and saw the leader's female counterpart help the boy to his feet. And looking at the pair the creature could see, if only for just a moment, the attachment that existed between them. It was there, breathing, _existing_... a living bond that connected them. A bond of great affection, conceived over years together as friends and companions, then finally brought forth as love. He took an involuntary step backwards...

His virtue, Courage. Hers, Love.

The Courage to stand for what they Love… the Unity of Conviction!

The angel stared at the two, standing hand in hand before him, and felt the fringes of their power as it washed over him. It was given them to judge... to judge those no longer fit for life! He placed a clawed hand against his chest, fingers fumbling away the pendant containing the Unity of Wisdom as he tried to keep the heart from bursting within his body. And now he was on one knee... now two, and gasping for each breath. His eyes alone could see the power that prevailed between the pair, and he could feel it stripping his soul away, laying it bare to be judged… to be judged corrupt and unworthy of life.

It was too much. The grievous injuries that the youngest had inflicted upon him half a year earlier, the sudden loss of the power that he'd held… and the angry, righteous judgment that the two were calling down upon him with their steely eyes. The angel winced in pain, his head reeling as he collapsed forward in a heap; the three chosen watching on in confusion. Even now Despair could hear the angelic chorus in his head, shouting their contempt for his Master... and then the creature expired, his body dissolving into the minute stream of data that marked the passing of all digimon.

Kari looked on in confusion, then scooped down to pick up the twinkling gem that held the souls of Izzy and Mimi within. "I don't understand," the girl confessed, turning her head to the side and glancing at her brother. The boy had his arm tightly around Sora, but there didn't seem anything particularly threatening about him. "What killed him? You'd think he was scared to death…"


	7. Farewell, and Onwards

****

Epilogue

Joe stopped outside the large manor, glanced once at the address written on the slip of paper in his hand, and looked up distrustfully. Someone, a girl with whom he was not familiar, had just called him away from a major biology assignment with a cryptic message that implied that Izzy was in trouble. He would not have come at all, being distrustful of strangers, but the girl's mention of Tentomon made it evident that either one of the others or Izzy himself had asked her to call.

"Joe?" a soft, almost timid voice queried from just inside the doorway of the mansion.

The boy stopped, peering at the girl. She was quite lovely, with black hair and dark brown eyes that made her pale skin seem almost unhealthily pallid. She was also quite thin, and the steps that brought her to his side were graceful. But there was something, something about her that made her seem quite sad, and the way that her head bowed beneath his inquisitive eyes made her seem almost scared of him.

__

Scared. Of me. Joe shook his head. According to Izzy, Joe could get as mad as he wanted and still not manage to frighten a roomful of fluffy white bunnies.

"Who are you?" Joe queried, looking at her sideways.

Rio's eyes were downcast. "I'm… a friend of Matt's. It was he who asked me to call. Please, come inside. Your friend Izzy is very, very badly hurt."

Joe still looked a bit distrustful, but an overwhelming concern for Izzy's well-being prevailed over any caution that he would have normally felt. "Where is he?"

Rio turned her eyes demurely away from the boy and led him into the manor, then up the stairs and down the hallway to the room where the others waited. She said not another word as she walked, and readily moved to the side to allow him to enter when they did arrive.

Joe's eyes went to Matt, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a large book as his friends entered. T.K. was beside his brother, and was holding a chain with the flickering Crest of Hope over the open book like a reading lamp. "Matt?" the older boy began. "What's--"

Matt nodded once as Joe's eyes fell upon Izzy's prone form. T.K. had managed to sever all of the wires holding both he and Mimi in their seats, but had dared not do anything more until Joe arrived. Besides the obvious physical injuries, the book that he and Matt were perusing suggested violent consequences if the pair were to be removed from the barrier of light.

Joe saved his questions and moved quickly to Izzy's side, looking in confusion at the steady beam of light emanating from the body and flowing into a large gem in the center of the room. "What's this?" he asked, shifting his glasses as he knelt to examine the iridescent beam.

"It's a really, _really _long story," Matt muttered. "But right now, I don't think it'd be a good idea to move them."

Joe placed two fingers on Izzy's neck, just beneath his jawbone. Feeling that the boy's pulse was still strong, the older boy nodded and went about checking his friend over for broken bones… any outside of the rather obvious one in his left arm. He looked up briefly. "I could use some water. I need to get the blood cleaned up to check his face."

Matt's attention was still on the book, and obviously he needed T.K.'s assistance with it. He glanced towards the dark-haired girl, who still had not completely entered the room. "Rio? Can you find him some?"

Joe stopped his examination of Izzy as the girl's name filtered through various levels of consciousness and into the more relevant parts of his thinking. He turned and glanced over his shoulder at the blond-haired boy. "Rio? Kuroda?" he questioned, one eyebrow cocked in the air.

Matt silently cursed his tongue for saying that out loud before having discussed the matter with the other boy. "No, Joe," he said, holding up his hands even as Rio's eyes dropped again. "It's okay. She didn't have anything to do with this. She's with me now, on our side."

Rio wished that she could sink into the floor. She had never even met the other boy before, yet the very mention of her name caused him evident alarm. Earlier in her life that might have been something that she would have wished for… but then, she had grown up a lot since. "I'll go see about some water, Matt," the girl murmured sadly, still not raising her eyes to meet those of the friends. Her head remained hung as she slunk silently from the room.

Joe watched the girl uneasily, then returned to tending his patient. "T.K.? T.K., hand me that knife," he asked of the younger boy.

Matt rose to his feet and went to his friend's side, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Joe, let me explain."

"Explain? What's to explain?" the other responded, still keeping his hands busy as he pared Izzy's shirt off with the knife. "She's with you. As in _with _you?"

"Yes," Matt responded with a murmur.

"You do remember that she tried to kill you a few months ago?"

"A lot has happened since--"

"And that she tried to kill your brother and Kari too?" Joe stopped his tending of Izzy and looked at the two brothers, his eyebrows raised and a frown on his lips. "And… everyone is _okay _with this?"

"Joe, stop," said T.K., seeing the sadness that the words were starting anew in his brother. His words were soft, as always, but insistent. "Haven't you ever done anything in your life that you regretted? That you wanted a second chance at?"

"Of course. But I happen to think that trying to murder someone for no reason is usually a pretty good place to stop allowing second chances, T.K."

The room fell silent as Joe once again turned back to Izzy. He continued checking about his face and chest as best he could, making certain that the younger boy was still sound, if badly bruised. Then Joe stopped, closing his eyes. "Matt… I'm sorry. If she's got you convinced that she's different somehow… well, I guess I'll have to trust your judgment. Nobody ever listens to me anyway." He fell silent, shaking his head.

"Here's the water."

The three boys turned at the sound of her voice. Though her eyes were still on the floor, Matt was fairly confident that the girl had been crying. He wondered just how much of the conversation that she had heard. Crossing the room, she placed a champagne glass full of water into Joe's hand, then turned away again.

The older teen felt like a heel, but said nothing as he dipped Izzy's shredded shirt into the water and started to dab away at the boy's bloody face.

"Matt!" said T.K. suddenly in alarm. "Where's Roan?"

The older boy looked to the spot where they had dumped the white-haired teen, then darted out the door which led to the hallway. A moment later, all four heard the sound of the front door slamming echo throughout the cavernous entryway. Matt looked down. Most of the larger fragments of the Crest of Hate as well as the book that T.K. had found were all gone. He could only assume that Roan had gathered them up on his way out… though for just what purpose he was uncertain.

"I suppose that he's your best friend now, too, right?" Joe asked dryly.

"Joe, shut up," Matt snapped in response.

T.K. went to his brother's side. "I thought you tied him up."

Matt sighed. "I did, squirt. I guess just not well enough."

"I don't think there was anything you could've done," Rio whispered quietly, stepping to his side. "It takes a lot to hold Roan. He's wriggled his way out of the best handcuffs a few times in his life."

"Nice of you to tell them beforehand," Joe murmured under his breath.

"Joe!" Matt shouted angrily, upset with himself as much as his friend.

T.K. grabbed his brother's arm. "Matt, getting upset isn't going to help." The younger blond boy turned to Rio. "You know him better than us. Do you think he'll come back?"

The girl continued to study the floor, but shook her head briefly. "He's lost control of the situation. If he still had the crest he might have, but without it, he'll probably take a while before he figures out what to do... next." And as T.K. watched a recognition, evidently a painful one, crossed over the girl's eyes.

Joe had now finished cleaning up most of the blood on Izzy's face and body. "His arm's broken, maybe his nose too, it's tough to say, but other than that he should be okay." He paused. "Matt? Come over here. I'm gonna see if I can set this arm, and I'll need your help."

Matt did as requested, taking a tight grip on Izzy's elbow. There was a short snapping sound as Joe gave a sharp tug on the younger boy's wrist, but then the operation was done. Matt winced. "Boy, I sure as hell hope he didn't feel that. I know did."

"Hey! Where are you guys?" a voice echoed from outside the doorway.

T.K.'s blue eyes lit up as he turned toward the sound. "Kari!" he exhaled, then darted out the door, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to reach the girl's side.

Matt placed an arm around Rio's waist as she stood at his side, allowing himself a brief sigh of fatigue. "I hope they've found some way to undo all this," the boy murmured. "That book was full of exactly what Despair did to trap them like this, but doesn't give a single clue about what to do to stop it. Not that he had any reason to try, I suppose."

"Kari!" T.K. shouted as he barreled down the stairs, almost tumbling past the girl as he finally stopped and caught her up in his arms, whirling her about once. As if needing to prove to himself that she was still alive, the boy lowered her to the ground and pulled her into his chest. He leaned his face against her hair and breathed in the delicious odor that told him that she was still well, then pushed her forehead back with his own and placed a light, lingering kiss on her lips.

The two remained locked that way for a few moments until Tai cleared his throat at the younger boy's back, causing him to release the brown-haired girl.

Kari stared at the boy in amazement for just a moment, then betrayed a rather impish smile. "I should stay away more often, if that's the welcome back that I'm going to get every time."

T.K. turned pink, then red as he realized that both Tai and Sora were both looking at him with poorly suppressed grins on their lips. "Matt and Rio are upstairs with Joe," the younger boy explained. "Roan just escaped, but we did take care of his crest."

Tai nodded with satisfaction, and held up the pendant containing the Unity of Wisdom. "The angel's gone too. I guess this is what we were after him for… at least, it did open the portal back here for us."

T.K. led the four into the room just as Joe was completing the fashioning of a makeshift sling out of what remained of Izzy's bloody shirt. "Did you get it?" Matt asked anxiously, meeting them at the door.

Tai nodded, again holding up the gem. "But what do we do with it? Break it open?"

Matt frowned, shaking his head. "I don't think so. The book that the angel was reading from instructed him not to let anything happen to that thing or both of the 'vessels' would 'expire'."

"Well, what then? We can't just leave them like this."

The seven gathered around the two still, seated forms of their two friends, watching the continued light flow from their respective bodies and into the large gem in the center of the room. T.K. and Tai both pulled the girls at their respective sides closer to them, and Joe bound Izzy's arm as best he could in the sling.

"I think I might have an idea."

Six pairs of eyes turned to Matt's girlfriend. "That... that is, " she continued, stammering under the sudden attention, "if you trust me enough to let me try."

An awkward silence suddenly filled the room, the six chosen all exchanging various glances at one another. Matt gave a smile. "Of course we--"

"Wait a minute, Matt," interrupted Tai, frowning at the pair.

"Tai!"

"Matt, stop." He paused. "Excuse us for a second," he said to Rio, his face expressionless as he motioned for the other four to join him and Sora.

Matt's eyes were brimming with thinly suppressed anger, but he did manage to subdue it long enough to follow his brother and Kari over to Tai's side. The six chosen engaged in a brief, somewhat heated discussion before they broke their little huddle and returned to the center of the room. Tai reluctantly handed over the little pendant to the girl, muttering under his breath, "Majority rules."

The words stung the dark-haired girl, but still she accepted the object and went first to Mimi's back. After pausing for a moment to make certain that her aim was true, she draped the object over the younger girl's neck, interrupting the flow of light from her body to the crystal.

*****

Izzy gave a sharp cry of loss as Mimi was abruptly torn from their shared existence, his soul suddenly feeling empty, alone and lost without her comforting presence. He shuddered once against the cold and the fear.

__

No… Mimi…

Then, mere moments… or perhaps an eternity later, the boy felt as if he had been flung forward at a great speed, his spirit seeming to gather momentum quickly before…

Izzy winced deeply at the pain in his left arm as he arrived back in his own body. He was almost overcome with weariness, and struggled to force his eyes even partially open. Every inch of his body ached, yet around him was the most beautiful sound that he could ever hope to hear. The voices of his friends all gathered around him, welcoming both he and Mimi back.

And then the pain became irrelevant to the boy as he felt a pair of warm, pleasant lips press against his own and a pair of gentle hands grab the back of his head and pull him forward, further into the kiss. Izzy raised his right arm and placed it about the girl's slender waist, enjoying immensely the soft feel of her lips… and also their delightful taste.

__

Strawberry. I should have known.

*****

Rio slipped quietly out of the bed that she was sharing with Matt. The nine were gathered together at Matt's apartment, since he and T.K.'s father was once again out of town on a business trip. They had all stayed up exceptionally late that night, again celebrating a seemingly impossible victory against overwhelming odds.

The dark-haired girl glanced down at the sleeping boy, and brushed the hair away from his face as she moved from the room. Though they shared the same bed they had done nothing inappropriate that night. There was a part of the girl that almost wished they would have, though it would have cheapened terribly the real, honest love that she'd finally found with him. She gave a sad smile. _But it would have been nice… just once…_

The others had tried to be polite to her that night, and little T.K. had gone out of his way to include her in whatever it was that they were all doing. She loved him for the effort, starting to see just what Matt had in him to make him that special kind of brother. But at the end of the night she could tell that, whatever they were feeling for one another, she was on the outside looking in. _Not really one of them._

And then there was Roan. The girl who knew him better than anyone in the world was well aware that he would not allow her to have peace. Or happiness. It might well have been that he was the most spiteful person in the world, and sooner or later he would get over his defeat and come looking for her. And if that should happen while she was still with Matt… well, there was really no question about where he would strike.

There was only one way out, though it was one that she would have given almost anything not to take. But she had turned it over enough times in her mind as she lay there beside Matt to know that she must. The old Rio would have placed happiness first... but she was no longer the old Rio. And so the girl quietly grabbed a pen from the kitchen counter, sat down at a nearby pad of paper and started to write:

__

Dearest Matt,

I don't know exactly how to say this… I've never had to say goodbye to someone that I cared about before. Please understand and believe me when I say that it had to be this way. The weeks that I was with you gave me a joy that was almost unspeakable and introduced me to emotions that I don't deserve to feel. But now I must give that up… give it up for the greater joy of knowing that my leaving will keep you and those you love safe.

It's hard to for me to write this now, Matt, and I can hardly see though the tears as I do. And pain... oh, the pain that I feel from biting my tongue to keep from crying like a child so that none of you will hear me. It hurts, but it is nothing to the torture that I feel as my heart is torn to pieces while still inside my chest.

I know that I will be empty and forever incomplete without you. I had no notion about how empty was my soul until that night when you came to me and filled it with your compassion. Yes, I have known joy unspeakable for the past weeks, but now my soul will die anew every morning that I must see without you.

You have redeemed me from Hell, Matt, and given me my first view of Heaven. And now, by my own actions, I am condemning myself to Purgatory, neither here nor there.

I almost wish that you would hate me for what I am doing, though it would crush me if you did. But I would willingly suffer that pain if I could be assured that you would forget me and go on with your life. You have exceptional, wonderful friends, Matt. Let their love see you through whatever pain my leaving will cause. My loss I must suffer alone, and in silence. I beg you not to do the same, lest I wake every night with an aching in my heart that tells me that you are unhappy.

But then, perhaps I am not so alone. Because of what you have shared with me, I may never be forsaken again…

--Forever my Love,

--Rio


End file.
